Leaning
by kit.writes.words
Summary: They learned to lean on each other before they fell in love. A pre-Japril Jackson/April story, detailing the early stages of their relationship, from the hospital shooting onward. [One chapter per episode, beginning with 6x22]
1. death and all his friends

Chapter One: **death and all his friends**

April got home to an empty apartment.

She wasn't sure why she hadn't been expecting that. Even when Reed had been alive, April had always beaten her home. Reed dawdled in the residents' locker room, chatting with everyone, and always missed the first carpool to their neighborhood.

Not that there was a carpool for her that day. Most the staff that lived near them hadn't been stuck in a hospital with a shooter all afternoon.

Taking the bus was an out-of-body experience. No one around her could still sense dried blood in their hair. No one around her had had a gun pointed at them at close range. No one around her had watched friends on the operating table, watched a friend miscarry. No one around her was shaking. No one else had tripped over the bloody body of their best friend.

 _Reed._

Empty apartment. Reed's cup on the counter, with a lipstick stain on the rim.

Suddenly April couldn't breathe.

Her instinct drove her to pull out her phone, fingers numb. Her fingertip trembled across the screen clumsily, scrolling through contacts. She couldn't call her family; they wouldn't have any idea what to say, and they'd only worry. But she couldn't call anyone at the hospital; no one liked her, or knew her.

 _Except Jackson._ Whether or not he liked her, she wasn't sure, but he knew her, and he knew Reed, and he had lost Charles today. Weber told them all before they left: the body count for the day. She was sick to her stomach.

And he would be too, she realized. He lost his best friend too.

Hesitating, April's eyes met Reed's handwriting on the message board by the phone: _April – one of your many cousins is asking about trading a goat for a couple of piglets? I don't think they realize you've left Ohio…_

That was it. April stumbled backward out the door, pulling the door shut. She forced herself to press Jackson's name and call.

Three rings, four, five—

"April?"

His voice was unreadable.

April tried to be clear, and concise, and not ramble on about pig slaughtering. "I... I'm at my apartment but I just can't stay here, and I know you probably—well, maybe you can—but since Charles was your roommate too, so I was wondering if maybe you wanted to be together somewhere… neutral."

She sounded like an idiot, she knew it.

"Okay," he said without a pause. "Yeah, that would be… Listen, I'll get us a room at the Mariott on the waterfront. Can you get there?"

"Yeah, I'll just take the Link to Pioneer Square." Directions, and light rail maps, and train stations, she could do. That part of her brain was functioning.

"Thanks for calling, April," he said, and hung up.

She didn't bother trying to go back in to get a bag together. She couldn't possibly need anything that badly.

It was a bit of a walk to the Capitol Hill station, but she was used to it, and in fact had just walked it a few minutes before, in the opposite direction. Walking gave her something to do at least. The sun was setting, but it wasn't beautiful anymore. It was harsh and blinding.

Riding on the Link was worse. She had to stay still, because she was surrounded by people, but every nerve in her body rejected the idea of stillness. She settled for fiddling her hands and tapping her foot like a jackrabbit.

She got out at Pioneer Square and could tell even before she got to the staircase leading up to street level that it wasn't light out anymore. That sucked. She hated walking by herself in the dark.

 _You'll be fine. It's not even late. People are everywhere. It's not like anyone's going to shoot you._

She couldn't breathe for a second. She remembered how and climbed the stairs, keeping in time with the person in front of her.

At the top she stepped out, turned the corner, in the direction of the water.

"April!"

Her heart stopped for a moment, in the way it kept doing, until her brain registered that voice.

"Jackson?"

"Behind you."

She turned, and there he was. Unlike her, he'd changed out of his scrubs. "I thought I'd meet you. It's kind of late to walk alone."

"Thank you," she said, a little surprised. Of course, Jackson was a good person, but they were not especially close, beyond the natural friendliness that came with proximity after so many years.

He didn't try to say anything else. They walked together, through the bars and shops and rushing people, making their way to the waterfront then walking along the water for about fifteen minutes until they got to the hotel.

It was at this moment, walking into the beautiful lobby, that April considered the cost. "Oh, Jackson, I can repay you. I just realized you paid for this."

"You know my family's rich, April," he said back, holding out his hand to stop her. "This is the kind of thing it's good to have money for."

He checked them in while April paced the lobby.

"Come on," he said, just loud enough for her to hear and no louder, and she stopped her pacing and followed him to the stairs. They didn't take the elevator, and April knew why: everyone knew what happened to Alex.

Their room was on the second floor, so the stairs were easy anyway. April used the key he'd given her to unlock the door, and when the door closed behind them, she turned around and locked the deadbolt immediately, and Jackson didn't say a word.

She could breathe a little better with the door locked.

"I tripped on Reed's body. That's how I found her. I landed bad and got a bloody nose, and I saw I was covered in blood, and for a second I thought a pint of blood had spilled out of my nose without me noticing, when I looked down at my coat. But then I looked and saw her, staring at me, eyes glassy."

It came out of nowhere. Jackson watched her carefully. She wasn't pacing anymore.

"I ran to Derek's office, and I was a babbling incoherent idiot, and he called security, and then he left me there. And I stayed for a while, but then I couldn't take the sitting-duck feeling anymore and I went to find him. And I found him with the shooter. And he _shot_ him because I came in."

Jackson sat on one of the beds and kept looking at her.

"And I was so scared because now his gun was pointing at me, so I went on and on about details about my life because I saw that on TV, so he let me go, and I ran. And I was sitting in the hallway till Cristina got me, and we were trying to find someone to save Derek, and then we found you. And _you_!" she pointed at Jackson, eyes wide. "You operated on Derek Shepherd with a gun to your head, with Cristina leading you in cardiac surgery."

Finally, he spoke. "And then it was over. It's over."

She scoffed. "It wasn't over. Then we had to get out of there. Then they told us Charlie was dead. And I saw Reed's body on a stretcher—under a sheet, but her arm was hanging off with the nail polish I painted on yesterday. And then I had to get home, which was ridiculous, and go into my apartment that I'm supposed to share with my dead best friend."

"It's over though. The worst part."

April stepped back. "Really? 'Cause for me the worst part was Reed and Charles dying, and as far as I can tell, that's never going to be over."

"Sit with me."

Without a counter proposal, April sat next to him. "I just don't know how to do anything. I keep failing at breathing."

"Me too."

"I couldn't even walk into our apartment more than a few steps."

Jackson considered this. "At first it wasn't really a problem. I walked past his shoes in the hallway, I changed, I showed, I went to make a cup of tea. Then all of a sudden it hit me, that he wasn't going to walk through that door ever. And I left and I sat in the laundry room down the hall. Then you called me."

"So we're both disasters."

"We're both disasters," Jackson confirmed.

They gravitated toward each other without noticing, sitting in silence, upper arms and knees barely touching.

April didn't care for the quiet, not with all the thoughts swarming in her head, so she picked something mundane. "I have a cousin back in Molene that breeds goats."

He turned to her, half-surprised and half-amused. "Okay?"

"Like, he can't stop breeding goats. It's genuinely concerning. His property is overrun with all these goats, and he just keeps thinking he needs more. And he tries to barter with them—everywhere he goes, he's like, 'Would you take a goat in exchange?'"

Jackson smirked at that. "He's pulling through the drive-through, gesturing to a backseat full of goats when they ask for his five bucks."

"Well, if they asked for bucks he'd have to redirect him to my other cousin that takes in almost-roadkill deer."

"These cannot possibly be real Kepner family relations."

April nodded. "On my Mom's side, actually."

"Did you ever hear about Izzie Stevens and the deer?"


	2. with you i'm born again

Chapter 2: **with you i'm born again**

Jackson had always liked weddings. As a kid, they'd been a good place to eat delicious food and show off, and then when he was a teen, he liked people-watching. As an adult, he still liked the food, and he liked silly wedding dances, and he liked watching people be all in love.

This one was a little stranger, with April sobbing right next to him.

She'd been fine before the ceremony. They'd come out of their rooms at the same time—living side-by-side at Meredith's had been giving them lots of chances to talk—and she'd been upbeat and excited.

He couldn't tell if it was happy crying.

He didn't want to draw too much attention to her, for her own sake and for Cristina and Owen's.

 _Okay, wow, that was a sob._

Glancing around, he didn't think anyone else was paying attention to April; the priest was talking, the wedding happening. One sob could easily go unnoticed. But she was shaking right next to Jackson, so he couldn't ignore it.

A sniff. He braved a direct look at her face—she was pulling herself together, and just in time for the groom to kiss the bride.

Owen leaned in, they kissed, and Jackson grinned. April raised her hands, clapping and laughing along with everyone else, though Jackson could still hear her voice was tight.

When the ceremony devolved into the reception, Jackson motioned for April to follow him into the kitchen.

"Hey – are you all right?"

She leaned back against the fridge. "You saw me crying?"

He nodded. He'd seen her cry a few times since the shooting. Neither of them liked being alone much, so they spent a lot of time doing things separately in the same room. But for April, it seemed like almost anything could set her into tears, if she thought about it the wrong way. She'd cried while baking muffins last week.

"It's just…" April shrugged, eyes glassy. "It's stupid. But I was thinking about how Charles never got to tell Reed how much he loved her, and how Reed can't be my bridesmaid, and I can never throw her a bachelorette party—not that anything I'd throw would be raunchy enough for her."

Jackson smiled. He used to try and change the subject when she talked about Reed, but now he knew it was better to just let her go on. It made her feel better.

"I know it's stupid," she said again. "I can make anything about Reed if I want to, so I just need to stop, right?"

"I don't know, April. Maybe you've just got to go through it for a bit longer. Maybe it'll stop on its own." That was the closest thing to advice he had. April was approaching this whole grief thing differently than he was. His mind had elected the never-think-about-it option, even if April's constant overthinking made that difficult sometimes.

April wiped her eyes. "Well, you were right about Dr. Shepherd. I trust what you say about this stuff. Not to make you my counselor."

Jackson had insisted on April talking to Derek a couple days after the shooting. She'd been constantly blaming herself for his getting shot, and Jackson was confident Derek would set her right. And according to April, Derek blamed himself, and not her in the slightest. That might not have been accurate either, but Jackson couldn't be a therapist for every doctor at SGMW.

"That's all right. Just be expecting an invoice from me in the mail in three weeks for my services."

April rolled her eyes and brushed past him back into the living room. "Hey, Karev, dance with me," he heard her say.

Since Alex and Lexie had only recently (and not smoothly) ended their relationship, Jackson thought Alex might deny her request, but April could be very persuasive when she wanted to be. Or maybe Alex had noticed her crying too.


	3. shock to the system

Chapter 3: **shock to the system**

She hated their eyes on her.

It was a near-constant since the shooting. Someone would be staring at her. Some intern, some nurse, some resident. Someone would decide that the fact that she tripped over the bloody body of her best friend meant it was okay to stare. From the dining hall to the residents' lockers, nowhere was safe.

When it got to be too much, like it had in the locker room that morning, Jackson would just drag her away by the arm. Otherwise, she'd sit there frozen, feeling like a hunted deer without an escape plan.

They stared at Jackson, too—not because of Charles, but because of the way he saved the day when Cristina was operating on Derek, disconnecting the monitor. He was a legend. And he hated it. He didn't want to be remembered for anything that happened on the day.

Well, really, he didn't want to remember it at all. April had picked up on that, and she was working on it. She knew no good would come of repression.

Nothing good came of the stares either.

Jackson always told her to ignore them, that it would get better with time. Or someone—Lexie, this morning, since they were staring at her, too—would scare them off. But it had been a long day, and when April realized the woman next to her in line at the coffee cart was studying her every detail, a hint of pity in her expression, April lost it.

She was fuming mad the whole ride home, which she shared with Derek and Meredith and Cristina. She didn't bring it up; they had their own problems to deal with. Meredith still hadn't been cleared for surgery, and Cristina had spent her most recent surgery laying on the floor, practically catatonic.

The moment she reached her room, April flung her bag inside, did an about-face, and knocked on Jackson's door. He'd ridden home with Alex half an hour before.

"Come in."

She plopped onto his bed without hesitation, and he must've been used to her constant interruptions because he was already bookmarking his spot and scooting over. "What's up?"

When she went in, she'd been expecting to complain about the gawkers. But something else came to mind, and was immediately more important. "Do you ever think about the fact that we're just seconds away from disaster around every corner?"

"I wasn't prepared for this conversation."

With a smirk she nodded. "I know. It's just… Odds don't matter. Things happen. People get struck by lightning. A shooter shows up at a hospital. These aren't normal things, but they have to happen to someone, so they happen to us."

Jackson raised his eyebrows. "How did I miss you getting struck by lightning?"

"You know what I mean. Did you know Lexie's mom died of the hiccups? And Cristina—"

"Don't even talk about that."

"I'm serious! That could've been any of us today, in that OR. That might be us! In a couple of surgeries, something'll set me off and I'll be lying on the floor, numb to the world."

"It wasn't _something_ that set her off. It was me."

April frowned, and lowered her voice. "What?"

He squeezed his eyes tight. "I was nervous, going into surgery. I was only just cleared. And I was stiff, and overthinking everything, except where the instrument tray was. I knocked it over, and it freaked her out."

"It's not your fault," April said, trying to make eye contact. "Something would've triggered it eventually. You can't blame yourself. It's about Cristina, not you. And the patient's okay, right?"

Jackson shrugged. "Cristina's not okay."

"Meredith's taking care of her. I'm sure she'll be okay." April leaned back against his headboard. "You get what I mean, though, right? I could be here in your room one minute, crushed by a boulder the next. Everyone stares at me, and it's like a premonition of death. They associate me with death and disaster. I feel like I'm on the edge of a cliff."

He stared at her.

"I am!" she insisted. "And whether or not you fall off, it's not even in your control. Yeah, maybe you jump, but maybe someone pushes you, or maybe there's a gust of wind, or a wayward seagull—"

"A wayward seagull?"

"A wayward seagull, and then you're knocked off the cliff."

Now he was amused again. "And what exactly does the seagull represent?"

"I don't know, anything," April groaned. "The lightning strike."

"Couldn't the lightning strike be a lightning strike in this analogy?"

 _Why can't he just think about something seriously for once?_ "You're not listening to me. It doesn't matter how it happens, but suddenly I'm spiraling to the ground, and no one blinks an eye because they're already used to staring at me, the girl surrounded by death. I'm at the edge of a freaking cliff."

"It's not always about you," Jackson muttered, turned away.

April stiffened. "Okay. Yeah. You're right." He didn't tell her to go, so she stayed. "Don't you feel like you're on the edge of a cliff?"

"It's not about me, either."

"Sometimes it is."

He was quiet for a while. April always found it easier to relax when she wasn't alone, even after a tirade like that, so she took those minutes to close her eyes and sit in relative peace.

"Yeah, I'm at the edge of a cliff, too."


	4. superfreak

Chapter 4: **superfreak**

Walking through the front door, April was trying to pretend she wasn't a little tipsy after their night at the bar. The turn the conversation had taken had forced her into drinking a little more than she normally did.

"You still up for bathroom patrol tonight?"

It took her half a second longer to figure out what Jackson was talking about.

"Oh—right, yeah. I'll be there in a minute." The upstairs bathroom she shared with most of Meredith's frat house always needed cleaning. Alex tidied up and cleaned drains on Mondays, Lexie washed towels and bathmats on Wednesdays, and she and Jackson scrubbed everything clean on Fridays. Usually working with Jackson made it little less of a chore. On this particular evening, she would've paid fifty bucks for Jackson to do it alone, if she wouldn't have had to give a reason.

She blinked hard, trying to clear her fuzzy head, and ducked into the kitchen for a glass of water and a couple of ibuprofen, in advance. April was a lightweight. It didn't take much to make her feel miserable.

"You're a virgin and a drunk?" Alex mumbled and he brushed past her into the kitchen.

She glared. "I had two drinks. I'm not a drunk."

"You look like a drunk."

That got him a slap on the arm.

 _I don't like today._ April gulped down her water and the pills. _First I make Meredith mad, just when she's starting to be my friend, then everyone finds out I'm a virgin, then I yell at everyone at the bar. And now I have to clean the freaking bathroom._

After a deep breath, April climbed the stairs.

"Get in here, April!" Jackson called, cheery like he hadn't had twice as much to drink as she had. "I'm cleaning the tub without you."

"Wouldn't want to miss that," she told him as she passed by. "Be right there, promise." She needed pajamas first. This night definitely needed pajamas.

When she entered the bathroom, he was still scrubbing at the bathtub with a sponge that they definitely should've replaced months ago. He glanced back at her. "Do you want to do the sink?"

"Sure." April liked sink duty anyway. Cleaning up toothpaste and stray hairs and throwing away forgotten floss was satisfying, taking care of a bunch of tiny problems in succession. "How's the tub coming?"

"I don't know how we possibly get it this dirty in a week."

April leaned over to get a look. "I think it's gotten worse since you started. It's that nasty sponge."

"I think you're right," Jackson muttered as the realization sank in. "Hand me a washcloth?"

Tossing one to him, April added, "One more thing for Lexie to wash next week."

"She'll make it."

They were quiet for a few minutes. April made sure the sink perfectly clean, then moved on to the toilet. "Isn't it funny how we have a special brush just for cleaning toilets? And it even has its own special home, that closes perfectly around it, just so we don't have to think about it."

"Think we can get one for Alex?"

April giggled. "He's not that bad."

Jackson stopped to look up at her. "Oh, and all the mocking your virginity today? You were perfectly fine with that? You looked uncomfortable."

She turned back towards the toilet. "Well, I saw you laughing too."

"It was kind of funny." He smiled, a bit apologetically. "And I mean, I kind of already knew."

"What?"

"I don't know, you just have a vibe. I don't know if I would've guessed you were a virgin, but I definitely thought…" He was smart enough to cut off his thought there, but April was already annoyed enough.

She scrubbed the toilet seat much more aggressively than was necessary. "Whatever. I gave my reasons."

"You're right, though," Jackson said, giving the tub a final rinse down. "We shouldn't have kept talking about it. We've all got problems."

April took a moment to formulate her response, filling the little bucket with soapy water. "I don't necessarily think about it as a problem."

"You don't?"

She passed the bucket to Jackson, along with the mop he'd brought up from the kitchen. Once a month they mopped, and this just so happened to be that Friday. April was really dreading ever making the house a cleaning schedule. _Maybe a chore wheel, instead. Though it was hard enough to get Lexie to agree to do some laundry once a week._

"No. I don't."

Last step: mirrors _._ April was more than eager to just go to bed. She swept up the bathmats and sat on them on top of the sink, so Jackson could clean the floor below.

"Not to sound like I'm judging you, but why not? Do you not want to ever have sex?"

She took a moment to close her eyes and breathe. This complicated conversation was just what the day needed. "Someday." She saw no reason to get into the details earlier, and no reason to get into the details now.

"Oh." He didn't have much of a response to that.

The truth was that she didn't want everyone else to know about her faith. Lots of doctors wouldn't respect a Christian colleague, one who prayed and believed in miracles. They didn't understand that her beliefs and her knowledge of science were perfectly compatible. Jackson may have been her friend, but even he would tease her, and it wouldn't be long before everyone knew. Including Cristina, and then the torture would never end.

She cleaned the mirror. He mopped the floor. When they were done he convinced her to watch a few episodes of _The Office_ and eat some cold pizza. He didn't come out and say "this will help distract you from being a lightweight virgin that people make fun of," and she appreciated that.


	5. can't fight biology

Chapter 5: **can't fight biology**

Jackson knew he was a good-looking man. It had quickly become apparent, from the beginning of adolescence, that his appearance could be used to his advantage. It was like a special, desperate-times-desperate-measures tool he could break out from time to time.

He needed it today. Dr. Altman was one mistake away from kicking Jackson off her service when Jackson decided to switch strategies. His brain was failing him. For the sake of his standing in Teddy's eyes, a crucial component to him moving forward in cardiothoracic surgery, he had to end today on her good side. That meant it was time to use his body.

It wasn't like he liked doing it. People had always focused on his looks, assumed an absence of intelligence, of drive, of purpose. He'd been fighting that presumption his entire adult life. Still, the drive that he did indeed possess pushed him to sacrifice his pride and do what he needed to do.

Extra smiles. Flirtation. Hanging out shirtless in the residents' locker room. These sorts of things had been enough, historically. Enough to get him through a rough patch till he could prove his worth through his work once more.

And it did work, at first.

By lunchtime, he was feeling confident. When he and Alex joined Lexie, Meredith, April and Cristina in the tunnels, his plan had been working so far. A well placed smile had gotten him into surgery that afternoon.

Alex mocked him about it, but only for a minute. He hurried off when April gave him an idea about his case. Then most of the others were gone, too, only a few minutes after he got there. Owen paged Cristina to the OR. Meredith decided to go take care of her and April's patient's consent form. That left him and April.

Setting down her sandwich, April turned to face him. "What you're doing is wrong."

"How do you know what I'm doing?"

"I saw you being all smolder-y to Dr. Altman." She scoffed. "It's just ridiculous."

Jackson raised one eyebrow. "Karev just gave you fries for having read an article about corpse bones. I'm getting a surgery because I… turned on the charm a little. It's not like I'm not qualified. It's just an exchange of goods and services."

"So now your face is a service?"

"It's certainly a good."

April snacked on a couple of her reward fries. "I know you know your stuff, Jackson. So there's no reason for you to be acting like some sort of… ASB president."

"You're going to need to elaborate on that."

"You know, how in high school the class president was never the best student, or someone with leadership experience. Just some popular kid with a pretty face."

Jackson couldn't help but make her uncomfortable. "I was ASB president."

Apparently, she was too annoyed to be shy. "What, of your boarding school in the French Alps?"

"Wow. That stings." He grinned at her. "Don't worry about it, April. It's just a temporary solution."

"Why don't you just get your crap together and be a better resident?" She tempered herself. "I mean, I know you're a good resident, so just try and familiarize yourself with the case more closely."

He shook his head. "I'm just having an off day. Everything I know about surgery is not good enough for her, apparently. Listen, once she's not so mad, she won't be so nit-picky and we'll work together just fine."

It wasn't difficult to tell she didn't approve, but she must have been done arguing because she changed the subject. "I think Lexie hates me."

"Probably. Didn't she steal your notebook once?"

April tapped her fingers on her tiny red journal, nodding. "Forever ago! I thought we were past that."

"Once a villain, always a villain. She is kind of hot though."

She widened her eyes. "Don't even think about it. I'm pretty sure she's still in love with Mark. Maybe. But either way, she's clearly unstable."

Now he had a easy way to get a rise out of her. "Unstable is kind of hot."

" _Jackson_!"

* * *

Later that evening, Jackson ran into April in the hallway at Meredith's house, on his way back to the bathroom. "Are you and Lexie done commandeering the bathroom to talk out your issues yet?"

"I guess so. She apparently wanted to hit me with a car today, so I'd say it's all pretty much out in the open."

"I would say so. Nice nose strip."

She wore it nearly every night. Something about skin care, he figured. It never failed to look a little absurd, but in a pleasant, very April-y way.

"Thanks. Newest in fashion trends. What about you?"

"I don't follow trends."

After a roll of her eyes she walked into her room, turned on the lights, and faced him again. "I mean your problem-of-the-day. Are you done flirting with Dr. Altman?"

He brushed past her, but turned back to talk. "As it turns out, yes. You might've been a little right."

"So it didn't go well?"

"It did not."

"So, in a shocking turn, she actually wanted you to be smart, and not just pretty? Because she's an incredible surgeon and not an idiot?"

"That's pretty much the gist of it."

Teddy had made it painfully obvious that his mistakes weren't because he didn't know what he was doing, but because he wasn't trying hard enough. He was getting lazy about some of the aspects of his work. It was embarrassing enough to hear from Teddy. There was no way he was admitting that to April, the queen of trying hard.

"You should always listen to me, Jackson," she said, before closing the door to her bedroom.

Honestly, the more he knew her, the more he was starting to believe that was true.

She popped her head out of her room. "And I should listen to you, too. Lexie definitely does not want a chore wheel."

"I told you. It's just one step too far."

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Thank you so much to everyone who's read this story so far! (Also, shout out to everyone reading from France 😊 I thought it was so cool to see that, as I'm majoring in French and love the language.)**

 **As this is the first fanfiction I've posted, I'm blown away by anyone who's reviewed, favorited, followed, etc. It's very appreciated. Any feedback is welcome, negative or positive.**

 **You should be able to expect a new chapter every few days, if not sooner. If that changes, I'll make note of it. You may also notice small changes here and there in previous chapters; I'm a compulsive editor and will be doing my best to fix any grammar/continuity errors. My goal is for this story to be completely canon compliant, so if you notice anything that contradicts the narrative of the show, please let me know!**


	6. almost grown

Chapter 6: **almost grown**

April's phone buzzed in her pocket: a text from Jackson. _Meet me in the skills lab – quick!_

She still had ten minutes left of her lunch break. Her plan was to go back and check on Roy Henley. He needed new lungs fast, and she was fighting to get them for him. Cristina should have been fighting with her, but she was still absent from everything surgical, despite Teddy's pushing. _I'll check on Roy before I go and get his tests,_ she decided.

The skills lab was a couple floors up and down the hall. "What is it, Jackson?" she asked as she swung open the door.

He motioned for her to close it again, smirking. "Shh, you have to be quiet. I'm about to reveal to you my master plan. And Mere'll be back from her lunch any minute."

"Oh, you have a master plan, do you?" Against her better judgement, she sat opposite him, backwards on her chair.

"I do. So Shepherd's set up this contest between me and Meredith—one of us gets to insert a shunt this afternoon, but he wants to make sure we've got neurosurgeon hands, so we've got to write our names on an egg, breaking the shell but not the membrane."

April tilted her head, sympathetically. "So you've got to compete against his wife?"

"I know, that part sucks. But like I said, master plan."

"Fine. Elaborate."

Eyes glinting with pride, Jackson held up his egg. "See that? 'Avery.' I think if I practice I can even sneak a 'J' in at the beginning. Derek's expecting initials."

"Meredith's just gonna do the same thing."

"Not if she thinks I can't do it at all," he said, clearly waiting for her to be impressed. "Whenever she's in the room, I'm breaking membranes left and right, getting frustrated. She already thinks she's got this in the bag."

April's jaw dropped. "You are _hustling_ Meredith Grey? That's a bold move."

He leaned back, arms crossed. "I'm not scared of her. This surgery is mine. I'll be one brain shunt closer to surgical perfection by dinner tonight."

"Well, I'll be one transplant panel closer. I want to get this guy some lungs. It's the only thing that could save him, he's a sweet man, and he wants to live."

Jackson frowned. "Does he stand a chance?"

April looked down. "Well, I hope so. I'm about to go get a few more tests. I'm hoping he's a good enough candidate. I wouldn't have suggested we call a panel if I thought he was a lost cause, would I?"

"No, of course not."

"Exactly. Now have fun with you egg scheme."

* * *

"April! Wait up!"

Taking a deep breath, April stopped. Whatever Cristina had to say to her, she highly doubted it could make her feel any better after that disaster. She embarrassed herself in front of Dr. Altman, in front of the chief, and in front of the panel that she had convened—and Cristina had only made the situation worse.

"What is it?" She couldn't help the irritation in her voice. "And by the way, you picked a great time to start caring about medicine again, just exactly when it would make me look the dumbest."

Cristina shrugged and said, "He's going on the list."

 _Okay. That made me feel better._ "Seriously?"

"Teddy just told me."

April started walking again, heading to the lockers, and Cristina continued with her. "I guess we didn't fail then."

"I guess not." Cristina snorted. "I mean, _you_ kind of did."

That was not unexpected from Cristina Yang, so April just nodded. "Yeah. But he's on the list."

When they walked into the residents' room, Jackson was the only one in there, sitting on the bench with his head in his hands. "Did you mess up your egg?" April asked, dropping next to him. Cristina gave her a look, but April just shook her head. It wasn't worth explaining.

"Nope," he said. He looked up. "I got the surgery, and I messed up. I could've killed her if Derek wasn't standing right there to fix it."

"Well, I advised the panel against putting my patient on a transplant list, and then Cristina convinced them to do it anyway."

Jackson laughed. "Ouch. April Kepner, the cold-hearted cynic."

"She had no belief in the patient's will to live," Cristina added over her shoulder.

"I was following what _you_ told me to do!" April snapped.

"Because you have no backbone."

April didn't bother to respond. Meredith and Alex came in, distracting Cristina, and April turned to Jackson again.

"Hey—don't overthink today. You made a mistake. It happens. We've both just got a while to go before we're perfect surgeons."

Jackson smirked. "It takes forever, doesn't it?"

"Maybe a couple weeks still." April sighed dramatically. "Think we'll make it?"

He tilted towards her for a second, temporarily resting his head on her shoulder before standing up. "I guess we can be patient that long. Then we'll be perfect, right?"

"Right."


	7. these arms of mine

Chapter 7: **these arms of mine**

Today was close to Jackson's worst nightmare.

His worst nightmare, the one he experienced on a near-nightly basis, involved a shooter in the hospital, killing his friends. Today, he was forced to spend the day rehashing his worst nightmare, everyone talking about it and asking him questions about it. In addition, everything was being filmed.

For the last couple of months, every time his nightmare got bad, and he started crying out in his sleep, April would come into his room. She'd wake him up, sit with him until his heart wasn't pounding, then go back to bed. It was an arrangement they had. In the same way, he'd sit with her at breakfast, when she was painting her nails, at lunchtime: any time that she used to have Reed to talk to, he would fill in when she needed him.

It was a little harder to be constantly there for each other when they were running around a busy hospital, trying to work, barraged by cameras and interviewers from all angles.

The cameras made him edgy and weird. He'd managed to dodge them most of the day. He wasn't on the big arm transplant case that April was tied up with, so he was just trying to stay clear.

So, of course, the nightmare had to push him into the dark basement anyway.

He'd just been trying to get his normal, boring cardio patient, Sam Davidson, into the surgery wing when the security system freaked out for the nth time—leaving him and the patient trapped in a 30-square-foot block.

It didn't take Jackson long at all to freak out. An alarm was blaring, he was trapped in a small space, and he'd spent the day reliving memories of the worst day of his life.

Then the patient started coding.

For just a moment, the CPR actually relaxed him; it gave him something to do.

But then, he glimpsed Charles's face, not that of Sam Davidson, lying there, coding. His brain was shifting back and forth: Charles, dying with Bailey in a deserted hallway, his hands pounding on the patient's chest, Charles decomposing in the ground, his patient's failure to breathe. His nightmare and reality were bleeding together, and he was helpless in both of them.

He barely registered Teddy's voice, but made clear to her what was clear to him: he needed to get out. _Now._

She told him he was going to break Charles's ribs. The patient's ribs. He tried to not press so hard, but he had to keep him alive.

It was several minutes more before the door opened. Jackson was cognizant of the doctors and nurses streaming in, making it even more crowded. Teddy told him someone would take over. Jackson couldn't stop. Charlie was dying over and over in his head.

Suddenly, Teddy's hands were yanking him off the patient, dragging him into the empty hallway. "Breathe, Avery!" she shouted. She left him there and jogged back to Sam Davidson, who they were wheeling into the surgical ward.

Jackson thought he might vomit, for a second. It passed. But he was shaking. Everything felt wrong.

When Charles had died, Jackson had been numb. By the time he got the news, he'd already gone through the shooting—he'd operated on Derek Shepherd, operated with a gun to his head. He had already been broken enough that the reality of Charles's death hadn't sunk in until days later. Even then, it was a fact, not an experience.

Now, he felt like he'd just watched Charles die right in front of him. Even though it wasn't Charles. Even though Sam Davidson wasn't dead, as far as he knew. And it made him want to scream.

Instead, he shoved a contaminated materials cart into some drawers and tried to breathe. He kicked it as hard as he could. Energy was coursing through him like it did at the apex of his nightmares, but no one was waking him up. There was nothing to wake up from, nothing to wake up to.

"Are you okay?" someone asked.

Jackson turned. A woman with a camera mounted on her shoulder. He stepped closer, heart pounding. He felt compelled to say something, to explain himself.

"It's been, uh… Hard. Since the shooting. I, uh… I lost some—some friends that day."

A moment later, he nodded at the woman. He was done. She gave him a sympathetic look, the kind April always complained about, and turned the corner back toward the surgical wing. Jackson waited a few more minutes, then headed through the hallways towards the tunnels. Teddy wouldn't be expecting him back on her service for a while. She probably wouldn't even want him after that manic behavior.

He sat down with a packet of saltines and zoned out, mind going everywhere at once, not settling anywhere long.

When he heard someone walk in, Jackson glanced at the clock—he'd been there for an hour and a half. _Whatever._

"Jackson."

He looked up at April's voice.

"Hey."

She sat next to him on his gurney. "I heard what happened."

He nodded and she scooted a little closer, forcing him to sling an arm around her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"Must've been horrible."

"It was." He was quiet for a minute. "Right after they died, I didn't understand your reaction. I was removed from it." _That feeling that everything's gone as wrong as you could ever dream in your worst dreams, and it's not ending._ "I get it now."

"I figured," she murmured, and reached down to squeeze his hand. "It's over, okay?"

April was good at easing him out of his nightmares, but he could tell this time, it would take longer than a few minutes.


	8. that's me trying

**A/N : Okay, this one features mostly scenes that are shown in the episode, which isn't how I plan to normally do these, but the trauma** **certification scenes are some of my favorites for April and I couldn't stand not to give them the spotlight. It's also a bit long, but there is a new scene at the end.**

Chapter 8: **that's me trying**

Her heart was racing in the best way.

 _Trauma training's kind of exciting,_ she thought, _and Blue Team's still standing!_ They'd lost Meredith; Dr. Hunt had sent her off to go help Cristina. But in her opinion, her team stood a pretty good chance of showing up all the other residents.

April stood with Alex on one side and Jackson on the other. She could see Jackson smirking out of the corner of her eye. He thought this kind of stuff was silly, but she liked it. It was good training—low stakes, but informative. And she wanted to win. Even if it wasn't meant to be a competition, she wanted to win.

"Blue team, status report."

Hands clasped together, she addressed Hunt: "We arrived on the scene to find nine casualties. We identified three as priority one, requiring immediate evacuation. Four were priority two, allowing for delayed evac. One was priority three, and the last was sadly dead on the scene." She couldn't help the smile on her face, even when saying "dead on the scene." They'd taken care of their triaging well.

"Nice work Kepner," Owen said, but unfortunately, that was followed with, "but it now seems to me that you have two dead patients."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, while you were standing around waiting for the helicopter to arrive and not keeping a constant eye on your patient's injury, this one developed a femoral bleed, bled out, and is now, sadly, dead."

He flipped over her patient dummy and April wanted to cringe.

 _That's not fair._ "No, uh, a femoral bleed—that wasn't on the card." _He gave us cards. The cards are how you play the game._

"Really?" Hunt snapped his fingers. "Well, it's on this one." The intern rushed in a brand new index card and placed it on the freshly-flipped dummy.

"Oh—no, no, no, wait. That's not fair!"

Hunt paced to the side, wagging his finger. "Patients don't suddenly die. It just seems that way when you stop paying attention. Food for thought. Red team, go!"

April's heart was racing in a slightly less happy way. This was going to be serious. It was going to take all her focus to play this right. If Dr. Hunt was going to be throwing them curveballs like that, she'd need to have all the bases covered.

"I'm so sorry, you guys," the intern added.

April refrained from glaring at him. Her frustration could be used to fuel excellence, she decided. Nothing was going to stop her team from winning, not if she could help it.

It started to rain, but that was okay. The index cards were laminated.

* * *

Before long, April had a solid grasp on the game. She was soaked to the bone, but she was confident her patients were thriving. It was her teammates that were starting to hold her back.

"The helicopter will be here soon!" she reminded them for the umpteenth time. Keeping Jackson motivated and Alex following the rules were not easy tasks.

A few minutes later, she could tell Jackson was slowing down again.

"The helicopter has to be getting here soon," she said, a little less confident. "It's been three hours. Just—just a few more minutes." There was Hunt in her periphery, with an intern shielding him from the rain with an umbrella. "Right? Right, Dr. Hunt? The helicopter'll be here any minute?"

He looked past her to Alex without answering beyond a near imperceptible nod. "Nice rain gear, Karev. Shouldn't you be more concerned with your patient staying dry?"

April's heart sank as she continued working on her own dummy. Alex was going to mess this up for all of them. _I told him not to wear that!_

"Yeah, well, he's a dummy and I'm a person, so…"

Hunt crouched beside Alex. "You know, a dry patient is less likely to die of hypothermia or shock. Something to think about."

When Hunt was walking away, April couldn't help but try and set Alex straight. "Alex, you can't break the rules like that. That's unsanctioned use of a trash bag. You're gonna mess up our certification!"

"Aw, you need to relax," Alex spat back. "This whole uptight thing? This is why you have no friends."

"Hey!" Jackson interjected immediately, even though he had been mostly silent for the last few hours.

"Okay, this is why you have _one_ friend."

He wasn't wrong. Jackson was the only person that she could actually trust and confide in. While she'd appreciated Jackson sticking up for her, she still felt just enough anger towards Alex to compel her to reach back and yank that stupid trash bag off him.

"Give me that back! Are you crazy?"

This at least brought a smile back to her face. She tucked it over her patient. "There you go little guy!" she chirped. "No hypothermia for you!"

Hunt announced that green team's patients were all dead, and when they tried to leave, told them to take a knee instead.

"Take a knee?" Jackson muttered. April and Alex looked up to meet his eyes as he faked realization. "He's gonna scalp them. We're in _Apocalypse Now_ , and we're gonna get scalped."

April grinned at him for just a second, then refocused on the wounds of her dummy.

* * *

If you had asked April to predict who would have given up first, Alex or Jackson, she would've said Alex, easily. She failed to consider how little Jackson liked doing things that he considered a waste of his time, and he was not someone to have an open mind about hours of dummy-saving in the rain.

When Hunt announced that only blue team was left, April's mood skyrocketed. _We did it! We beat the rest. Now we've just got to make it until the helicopter gets here._

"Keep an eye on Karev," Hunt added. "That's what resourceful looks like."

April glanced over to see him making use of a cardboard box. _Well, well, Karev's getting into the spirit!_

She had been busy re-stitching in her dummy's chest cavity when she heard the sound she'd been dreading: another dummy flipped by Owen Hunt. Jackson had killed it. And he was mad.

"I hear it!" she insisted, eager to end this before Jackson forwent surgery altogether. "I hear the helicopter!"

"You what?" Jackson asked.

Pointing up at the sky, she stuttered a bit. "I—I—I hear it!"

Alex squinted at her through the rain. "Oh, wake up! You don't hear the helicopter because, 'A,' it's imaginary, and 'B,' the imaginary helicopter is never coming!"

She scowled.

"Hunt's trying to break us, trying to teach us some BS lesson about how trauma isn't fair or whatever," Alex continued. "We're not done until he says these dummies are dead. The end!"

April shouted back, "It's not true! You are wrong!"

It was then that Jackson gave up. "Screw this. I'm done."

"What?" April said. She had never expected Jackson to abandon the team. "Jackson!"

But she could already tell he was too far annoyed to change his mind. And she knew he was still all messed up from being trapped during the lockdown, so she decided not to try to change his mind. Even Hunt ordering him to complete the training wasn't enough to keep Jackson from storming into the ER and out of the rain, leaving the unlikely pairing of April and Avery to keep a bunch of dummies fake alive.

April jumped over and continued CPR on Jackson's patient.

* * *

It was dark, still raining, and April and Alex were still performing medicine to plastic mannequins.

She'd been doing CPR off-and-on for hours. When she spoke, her voice was shrill. "Sir! You said the helicopter was going to be here hours ago! And it's not here, and I'm not complaining, but where is it?"

Alex, beside her, was somewhat lazily opening a syringe packet.

Hunt squinted. "Well, the rain's still pretty bad. Probably got caught in a hailstorm."

She saw it—saw Hunt point for a new index card, and her instincts drove her to reject the idea completely. This dummy was not about to die. "NO!" she dove down, panting, to cover the body. "No! I know what that card is gonna say."

In the last couple of hours, she'd figured out the game, figured out Hunt's patterns.

"It's gonna say he has cardiac tamponade, with associated hypotension and bradycardia, but he can't! 'Cause I already did a pericardiocentesis and bolused him with IV fluids."

The intern was clearly impressed. "She's right."

Something in her snapped. Playing by the rules was not working anymore. She was going to save these patients, she was going to win this game, and she was going to be certified in trauma surgery. And she wasn't about to let Hunt tell her she had to let them all die to finish.

"Karev!" she ordered, rotating the gurney so they could lift it. "Grab his feet!"

Alex, at least loyal to the cause if not intuitive, headed for the intern.

"The patient!" she yelled. "Come on!"

They lifted the gurney and she led them towards the ambulance.

Hunt was frowning, chasing after them. "Hey, hey, hey—whoa, whoa, whoa!"

"This is awesome," Alex said, laughing.

"What do you think your doing?" Hunt asked. "This ambulance is not in play."

 _That's rich coming from you, Mr. The-Index-Card-Is-Changing!_ "Oh, you're just making stuff up!" April said. "Which I can do too! And I say it _is_ in play. Can't fit nine patients on an ambulance, but two will fit just fine."

Alex didn't hesitate to help her load up the second gurney.

"Seven of my patients may have died today," April shouted, "but these two won't! Because I'm gonna get them on this ambulance. And I'm gonna take them to that hospital—right there!"

"All right!" Alex said, and closed the ambulance doors behind her.

Hunt tried to tell her that the ambulance was involved in the accident and wouldn't run, but she just grinned.

"There are keys in the ignition, so let's see." The engine purred to life. "Ha!" She knew she was acting manic, but Hunt had pushed her to this point. "Looks like I got Triple-A! Apparently they could get here when the helicopter couldn't."

Alex was laughing, and April had never felt such a weird sense of intensity.

"Now, move! Or I will run—you—down!" Her voice had dropped a full octave.

Hunt apparently chose this time to give up the façade that he was in control, and he and Alex took off for the ambulance bay, to meet her there.

Driving an ambulance was a fun thing she hadn't expected to do when she woke up that morning. _I'm gonna use the freaking siren!_

She hopped out when she got there, reporting off the patients' information as she yanked out their gurneys.

"All right, Kepner, that's enough," Hunt said.

That didn't stop her from tossing one dummy over her shoulder and continuing throwing out her medical recommendations rapid-fire.

Alex was smart enough to figure out what was going on. "Will you tell us we won or she's never gonna stop."

Without hearing Hunt's reply, she yelled at Karev to call the OR to get a room available.

"Will do!" was his reply, in which she might have detected a hint of sarcasm.

"All right, all right!" Hunt said. "Fine. Blue team wins!"

April's face lit up. "Blue team wins?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You win. He's gonna live for forty more years and have fifteen grandkids—you happy?"

"Blue team wins!" she shrieked, dropping the dummy she'd been carrying into the ER. She rushed at Alex, who was still laughing at her, and jumped into his arms.

She was more than a little over-excited. And then she was laughing just like Alex.

* * *

Half an hour later, she had managed to get into dry scrubs (though her hair was a lost cause) and brag to half the residents, with Karev's help, who was now claiming he'd been invested in the competition the whole time.

The person she really wanted to talk to was Jackson, but she wasn't sure where to find him, or if he'd even want to hear about it. She did eventually run into him on her way into the cafeteria, to finally have something to eat.

"You on your way out?"

"Yeah."

She bit her lip. "Well, Alex and I won."

He smirked at her. "Good job. I see you spent your whole day doing something useless, but at least you got an imaginary medal out of it."

"Hey!" she grabbed his shoulder. "Don't be mean."

"Sorry," he said, genuinely. "It's just… you and me, we know what trauma's about. We've experienced it. We've both been in surgery while a shooter was in the hospital. Practicing on dummies pales in comparison. I'm going home."

 _Okay, so that's what this is about._ "Jackson, that's why I like it."

He turned around.

"It's a chance to take something that should end horrible, a trauma situation, and make good of it. I know it was just dummies today, but there's something wonderful about learning how to take the worst life throws at you, and not let it win."

Jackson took in her words, and nodded. "Fine, for you. I don't think it works like that for me."

"You don't have to love it," she said. "Just try and appreciate that idea."

One look at his face told her that he thought she was ridiculous. It made her bristle. He hadn't looked at her like that in a long time, like her opinion wasn't even worth considering.

"Listen, you're right," she said, getting his attention. "You and me, we lived through trauma. So, yeah, whatever, you think dummies are done. But that work? Trying to stop people from dying, prevent their loved ones from having to mourn them? That's important."

He didn't say anything, or do anything, just looked at her.

Something about that gave her a little extra spirit. She had to set him straight about this. "We're surgeons, Jackson. We've got to learn to save people. If you tie everything directly to Charles and Reed, it'll destroy you. Tell Hunt you think the dummies are dumb, if you have to. A little insubordination isn't going to get you fired. But get your certification. And remember almost everyone you work with has had friends die, too. We all hate thinking about it."

 _Wait, that was harsh._ "Talk to me about it anytime," she added, softer. "But don't let it mess up your work. I'm gonna get dinner."

"I'm gonna go home."

April called out, just before he was out of earshot. "Hunt's bound to find you. You better finish your certification."

"Whatever," Jackson muttered.

She hadn't fixed his mood, but she knew Jackson. If you told him something, he'd think about it. Whether or not he ended up agreeing was a flip of the coin, but he'd always think about it.

"Don't be stubborn!" she added, getting a glare in return.

She stuck out her tongue and he tried not to laugh as he pushed the elevator button.


	9. something's gotta give

Chapter 9: **something's gotta give**

Jackson hadn't even wanted to come to the party.

It had been a long day, and the rumor was that Cristina hadn't even bothered to show up to her own housewarming. But when your friends and your colleagues and your roommates were all one in the same, skipping a social event became the sort of thing you wouldn't hear the end of for weeks.

His plan was to drop in, leave half an hour later, go home, and sleep.

It had already been forty-five minutes. He was just waiting for April to get there, since she had a car, and was a little ticked off she was so late. She'd want to stay for her half-hour of obligatory mingling before they could leave, too. Her and Karev's surgery must've run way late.

Callie came walking over. "Are you manning the wine?"

"At some point, I became the sommelier of this event," he admitted, pouring her a glass of the white she pointed to. "Whoa, have you got blue streaks in your hair?"

Their conversation was interrupted by a sound he was familiar with, but hadn't heard in a few weeks: April was crying. "Excuse me," he said, rounding the corner toward the living room.

Owen was standing there, and tapped her on the shoulder, well-meaning, as she dissolved into tears.

Jackson hurried towards her. "What happened? April?"

The look on her face surprised him: it wasn't the specific sadness he'd seen several times, the Reed sadness, and it wasn't stress. She looked afraid, almost hurt. This wasn't an old wound he had seen before; something new had happened and it had really upset her.

"Hey, hey. Come on, come on." He felt his pulse quicken as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, guiding her toward the kitchen, which was empty aside from Callie. She evacuated when she saw April's face.

As he got her a tissue, he was racking his brain as to what could've gone wrong. _She was on peds today—did her kid die?_

"April, what happened?"

"...Alex..."

Jackson's blood ran cold. "What did he do?" he asked, lowly.

She shook her head.

"Then what? Did your patient not make it? Did he mess up and kill the baby?"

"Lisa's fine," she said. "Alex saved her."

"Karev _saved_ her?"

April closed her eyes and nodded. "With a ping-pong ball. Stark tried to take credit for the idea, but it was Alex."

She was breathing steadier, so Jackson tried again. "What's wrong, then?"

"I… it's my fault."

"What is?"

She looked away from him. "I… I wanted to tell Alex how wrong it was that Stark was trying to say it was all him, and I found Alex… in an on-call room."

The way she hesitated on those last few words gave Jackson an uneasy feeling. On-call rooms had a certain connotation at SGMW, that was for sure.

"So I told him, and he was grateful, I guess, and… he kissed me."

Jackson frowned. He knew April had recently developed a crush on Alex, but in a puppy-dog-love sort of way, and he didn't think Alex knew how to reciprocate that.

She was hesitating, and Jackson couldn't take it. His stomach was turning. "And what?"

"He kept kissing me. And… it got more intense, and… He's right, I'm not a child."

His eyebrows furrowed. "What exactly are you talking about?"

"I was… He shouldn't have to walk me through it, I'm an adult. I mean, why should we have to go slow? I don't need him to hold my hand."

Though Jackson was fairly confident he knew what had happened, he needed April to be clear, because he was clenching his fists and needed to know precisely how angry he could be. "So you and Alex… and then he was pushing you?"

"I just wasn't ready to go that fast," she whispered. "So he got mad when I thought he was going too fast, and yelled and left. But it's stupid of me. It's my own fault, I shouldn't be upset."

Jackson pulled her into his arms for a brief second, trying to suppress the tenseness in his muscles. _When I see Karev…_ "No, April, he had no right to act like that. It's your body, he's got to go at your speed, okay?"

She didn't respond, and he rested a hand on her arm. "Don't let someone pressure you like that, April."

Shaking, she half-nodded. "I… I was scared. And I know that, stupid, we're adults, it's just—"

"It's not stupid," he insisted. _Karev scared her. I'm going to kill him_. "He was wrong, not you, okay? You're not wrong. And…" He didn't even know what to say.

With a shrug, April said, "I don't know. I thought maybe, if I slept with someone, I'd be a little less weird."

"You told me you're a virgin for a reason," he said quietly. "Who cares what other people think. I mean, I think you're weird, but not because of that."

She smirked a little, but a tear escaped her eye. "I just… I didn't want to go that fast. I thought maybe… but I just wasn't. I guess, I'm not."

"It's okay," he said, leaning close. "April, it's his fault for trying to rush you into something, especially since he knows you're a virgin." The longer the idea of Karev pressuring April stayed in his head, the more his thoughts were clouded with anger. He was trying to focus on comforting April instead, making sure her mindset about the whole thing was healthy. If they weren't careful, something like this could seriously screw her up.

Suddenly, her eyes widened at something over his shoulder.

He turned, saw Karev at the top of the staircase, and he snapped.

"All right, listen, let me talk to her," Alex said as Jackson stormed toward him, but there was no way that was happening.

All of him was driven to take Alex down. April had become his best friend, and beyond that, there was something about her that sparked a sense of protection Jackson didn't feel towards his other friends.

One solid punch, and the anger was only growing.

As he slammed Karev into the coffee table, breaking the glass and effectively giving an anti-housewarming present, Jackson realized why it felt so satisfying: for months he'd been trying to help April deal with everything that had happened to her. To both of them. This time, he could punch the problem in the face.

He only got in a few swings more before Sloan and Owen were holding him back, Callie and Meredith leading Alex outside.

Once Alex was out of the room, Jackson was able to relax a little. Owen just gave him a look, half I-like-April-too-and-it-seems-like-Alex-hurt-her-so-I-don't-blame-you, and half you-just-broke-my-table. Sloan patted his shoulder and complimented his form.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw April duck into the bathroom.

"You all right?"

That was Lexie, he nodded at her.

"I'll get you a washcloth," she said, gesturing to his bloody hands.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, they were finally leaving that stupid party.

The rest of the house was riding back with Lexie, so it was just him and April.

"You didn't have to do that, you know?"

It was the first time she'd spoken since Alex got to the party; she'd merely nodded when he asked if she was ready to leave. She didn't take her eyes off the road, but he could feel her nervousness; she was uncomfortable and unsure what to say to him.

"I'm not sure why I did." He paused. "No, actually, I am. You know how Mere and Cristina call each other their 'person?' You're my person, April."

She glanced at him, with a smile. "Really?"

"Really. And Alex hurt you, so it made me want to hurt him. You get that, right?"

"I get that," she said. "You're my person. I always get you."

Jackson groaned. "I'm going to regret admitting that. We're not going to say it all the time like them, right?"

"We'll play it cool," she agreed, the laughter back in her eyes. "And, Jackson, you don't have to be mad at Alex. I'll get over it, and you should too. He messed up, but it wasn't unforgiveable or anything."

He hesitated. "You're right." He'd probably believe that more in the morning. "Hey, did you add a little red to your hair? The color looks different."

"Yeah, I'm trying something out."

"It suits you. And by the way, I think Lexie's into me. She spent like five minutes cleaning off my hands."

April giggled. "Yeah, she likes you."

 **A/N: Ah, got to love the first obvious Jackson/April relationship episode :) Thank you for reading! Reviews are always appreciated.**


	10. slow night, so long

Chapter 10: **slow night, so long**

 _I'm running a marathon_ had become April's mantra, and by the end of the night, it seemed even truer. Her bones and muscles were aching, she could feel her heartbeat in the soles of her feet, and there was no doubt she was in need of a shower.

It was 6 AM when she, Meredith, Alex, Jackson, and Lexie all made it home, but she decided to pretend that wasn't true, and go and take the shower she'd reserved in the car.

Once she was clean and a little refreshed, she wrapped her hair in one of her towels, ignoring the fact that it smelled like one of the guys had used it accidentally. They had no respect for the initials she'd stitched into the tag of each towel.

The hot water had woken her up again, so she thought maybe she should try and wait to sleep until the afternoon, since her shift wouldn't start until 3 AM the next day.

Halfway down the stairs, it occurred to her that she and Alex Karev had the same initials.

"I think we've been sharing towels," she muttered to him when she dropped into a chair by the kitchen table. Everyone but Meredith was still there, since she had gone to bed.

Jackson scowled. "You're going to want to replace yours completely," he suggested, standing up. "I'm taking my shower now."

As Jackson headed upstairs, Alex turned to her. "Oh, because we're both AK."

"Right."

"Well, what's your middle name?"

"Magdalene."

He cursed. "Michael."

Lexie, sitting on the counter with a cup of coffee, was laughing. "If you two ever get married, you'll only have to put one monogram at everything at the wedding."

"Monograms?" Alex scoffed.

April couldn't take in this offhand comment as smoothly as she might've wished. The bruise around Alex's eye served as a perfect reminder of everything that had just happened between them. The pizza he'd shared with everyone after work had lessened her hard feelings, but joking about marriage made her cringe—especially after that ridiculous conversation with a drunk Bailey today. _Oh, I can't wait to tell Jackson about that._

"Good morning!" Derek said, chipper as he strolled into the kitchen, sunshiny and rested.

All three of them groaned.

"I would kill to be you right now," Lexie insisted, shaking the knife she had been using to slice some bread.

Derek held his hands up. "Knife down, Lexie."

* * *

Eventually, the sound of the shower stopped, and April heard Jackson getting out. She took her last sip of the coffee Lexie had made for her, and headed upstairs. Alex was already going to bed, hoping to sleep for the next 18 hours, apparently. Derek had left for the hospital, and Lexie was curled up with a book.

April hopped up the stairs, energized by the coffee. She waited outside his room for a minute, long enough for him to get dressed, then knocked.

"Come in."

"I have got to tell you about the conversation I had with Bailey last night."

Jackson nodded. "Okay, one sec." He moved past her towards the bathroom, to hang up his towel. "But make it quick," he added, walking back in. "I want to sleep."

She shook her head, frowning. "No, you'll wake up at dinnertime, and then by the time it's your shift you'll have already been up 12 hours. That's a horrible idea."

"Ugh. You're right. But I'm so _tired_ ," he whined.

She grinned. "That's fine. I can fix that. We'll go get you some coffee, then we can play Scrabble!"

"We're not playing Scrabble again!" he said, quickly. It was true that April had a habit of absolutely decimating him every time they played. And then he'd use some obscure off-brand internet dictionary to try and prove her words weren't real, even though they were right there in Merriam-Webster, and it turned into a fight before half the tiles were gone.

"Then we'll watch a movie."

"I'd fall asleep."

April groaned. "Well, you're not gonna sleep for the next five minutes, because I have a story that involves a very drunk Miranda Bailey giving me relationship advice."

That got his attention.

"I was trying to figure out how to separate my superglued teens, and she told me about the soap and water and acetone trick, but she also went on and on about my 'maiden voyage,' and finding my Ben."

"No!"

"Yes!"

Then they were both laughing, and as she went into the details, April did eventually remember to warn him to keep his mouth shut about the whole thing.

"You weren't supposed to tell anyone?" Jackson's eyes widened. "I thought you were a good secret keeper," he said, feigning shock.

"You don't count!"

"I don't count?"

"No, because you're my person, which means—"

He cut her off, "I told you! We're not going to use 'person' all the time. We're not doing that."

She smirked. "Well, you're the one who started it."

"Regretting it more every minute. But I'm just concerned about your secret keeping. How can I trust you?"

With a mischievous grin, April said, "I could never betray _my person_ ," which just made him complain all the way down the hall, down the stairs, and into the kitchen for some coffee.

They were noisy enough to bother Lexie, who relocated to her bedroom.

"I feel bad," April whispered.

Jackson laughed. "You don't have to be quiet now; she already left."

April opened the fridge. Some root beer sounded good with another slice of that pizza.

"Hey, what happened to drinking when we got home?"

"Alex and Meredith are asleep, but Lexie might come drink with us."

Eyeing her root beer, Jackson said, "I was imaging something a little stronger."

She passed him a Space Needle Golden IPA. "Why do you want to drink, anyway? I know we worked all night, but it isn't even 7:00 yet. Was the night really that bad?"

He looked up at her, and she could see in his eyes. "Two brothers in a car accident, and the 15 year-old died. Older brother's fault."

"Oh." She took a sip of her soda. "You want me to get Lexie? She would probably have a beer with you."

"Nah." He shook his head. "She thinks I'm messed up."

"What?"

"She hears my nightmares every night—she told me today. And… she woke me up from one this morning."

April was surprised. "You had a nightmare? It didn't wake me up. I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "I mean, it was fine, it was just weird to have Lexie there. I guess I'm used to you. And it was a little embarrassing."

She wanted to tease him, because she knew he had a crush on her, but she was also convinced that was a bad idea. Teasing him about it would only encourage him. "Is it embarrassing with me?"

"I guess not."

 _Okay, this'll cheer him up._ "Well, I'll just superglue myself to you, and then I'll always be there to wake you up from your nightmares."

"What about the nightmare of being superglued to you?"

She punched his arm, but couldn't help but laugh. "Are you sure you don't want to play Scrabble?"

He scoffed, then his mood turned serious. "Actually, I'm feeling lucky. You're going down, Kepner."


	11. adrift and at peace

Chapter 11: **adrift and at peace**

 _Yeah, I'll deal with the emergency page that you told me to fake, Lexie, sure._

He was a little annoyed. And despite knowing exactly what she'd say, he wanted to talk to his best friend. April was sitting at the furthest distance from the bar counter, scouring over her boards study book, her left hand resting against a near-full beer bottle.

"You're a party animal," he mumbled, sliding in beside her.

April looked past him, at what he knew to be Lexie and Mark kissing. "So, she's not over him?"

"She is not."

"Told you so."

 _There it is._

Jackson took a swig of her beer, knowing she'd probably forget to drink it altogether. "Well, it seemed like maybe there was hope—she told me to interrupt their conversation with some emergency, so I thought… But no, there they are, tongue-wrestling."

Giggling, April passed him her Ziploc bag of walnuts and blueberries. "Have some brain food."

He snatched a few. "Thanks. But it's weird that you carry that around."

"Only when I'm gonna study," she insisted. "It's either that or whatever junk looks most tempting from the vending machine."

"And you don't choose junk?"

"Sometimes I do. But I like blueberries. The walnuts are neither here not there." She closed her book. "I'm getting the impression you're not going to let me read my book."

He shrugged. "Considering it'll be more than a year before the exam, I don't feel too guilty about it. You're crazy overprepared." Not that that was surprising. April approached life with a constant Boy-Scout-in-the-woods mentality, which he appreciated, since she always had medicine, snacks, pens, and Chapstick on hand. Recently she'd started carrying a Chapstick just for him, because she didn't like sharing hers.

"I'm just neurotic enough to think that if I check off all the right preparedness boxes, I'll pass with flying colors."

"You'll pass, April. A meteor would have to crush half your brain for that to be in question."

"If that happens, you make sure Derek does his very best to get me out of the OR in time for the boards."

He saluted her. Joe had Christmas music playing, and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" started up, making him grin. "My mom played this song endlessly around the holidays."

"Really?" April smiled at him. "My favorite was always 'O Come, O Come Emmanuel.'"

"I don't know that one."

"Of course you don't, you heathen."

With a laugh, he stood and reached for her hand. "Come on, let's go dance."

April eyed him, uneasy. "To this song?"

"It can be done, I promise. We'll just go over there, where I don't have to stare at Mark and Lexie swapping spit."

He pulled her over to the far corner of the bar, where some guy was smoking a cigar but it was mostly empty, and started to try and lead her through something simple, reminiscent of swing dancing.

"Wow, Jackson, take a lot of dance lessons?" she asked, grinning up at him.

Stepping on her foot for the fifth time, he nodded. "Oh, yeah." Though he was sarcastic, he actually had, at his mother's insistence, but she didn't need to know that, especially since he had retained absolutely nothing.

After he tried to spin her and nearly twisted off her arm, April dissolved into laughter. "You're even worse that my nephew, and he's six—and half my height."

Jackson held up his hands. "I'm trying my best."

"If we're going to keep dancing, I'm going to need a little more alcohol in my system. For pain management."

As she headed back to her beer at the table, Jackson said, "As a doctor, I'd have to advise against that course of treatment."

April scoffed and downed half the bottle. "As a doctor, you'd think you knew enough about the human body to know where your own feet are."

"I missed that day in med school."

"What a shame."

Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" began to play.

With a dramatic sigh, Jackson said, "See, and due to your addiction to alcohol, we missed our good dancing song."

April rolled her eyes. "Hey—this is one of my favorite Christmas songs! We can dance to this."

"So the Kepner family wasn't purely restricted to hymns?"

She tugged him back over by the smoking man. "Come on. This one's just more of a swayer."

"A swayer?"

"A swayer. And of course we weren't restricted to hymns. Even though there are lots of beautiful religious Christmas songs, like 'O Come, O Come Emmanuel,' I used to drive my whole family insane switching between singing 'Holly Jolly Christmas' and 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' for hours on end."

He rested his hands on her waist and, as instructed, began to sway. "I don't think I've ever heard you sing."

Wrapping her arms over his shoulders, she smirked. "Well, that's because I save my angelic voice for very special occasions."

"Or if you drink enough?" he suggested, nudging the bottle still in her hand.

"Or that."

April Kepner was not the sort of person to drink more than a little when she was working the next day (no doubt still on fistula patrol), but she did hum "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" under her breath as they walked to the bus station.


	12. disarm

**A/N:** **I got a guest review asking me about certain pairings/developments (no spoilers if anyone happens to be seven seasons behind, haha) coming up in season 7, hoping I wasn't going to have them happen in this story. So here's my reminder that I'm trying to keep this fic as canon as possible - I won't be deviating from the storyline of the show. Sorry! I like the idea of having these chapters be something you could read right after watching an episode, and having nothing seem dissonant between the two. On that note, if you happen to notice any continuity problems, please let me know :)**

Chapter 12: **disarm**

"There's a shooter…" She first heard it as a whisper between nurses, and her feet started moving of their own accord, driving her down the hall and into the lobby towards the TV, from which she could hear it again: "shooter."

There was already a crowd of surgeons and nurses around the screen. April just heard over and over in her head: " _There's a shooter."_

She heard exactly what she'd been dreading from the reporter: "Yes, there is a shooter—"

Her brain shut down. It was happening again. _How could it happen again? Where do I hide? I can't hide; I have patients. Where is he?_

Suddenly, a hand on her shoulder, shaking her out of it. "April!"

She blinked, met Jackson's eyes. He looked scared, but not fight-or-flight. That distinction slowed her racing heart.

"There's a shooter at Pacific College," he said, squeezing her shoulder. "Did you get that?"

Her breath released shakily. "Okay."

 _Pacific College. Not here._

The TV was saying something. She turned her attention to it, head still a little fuzzy. Jackson moved back to his spot, leaning against the stairs railing.

A sob was caught in her throat.

"I'm here at the campus, amidst the students…"

April could hardly listen to what the reporter was saying. The thought of those kids pushed her past the breaking point, and she started to cry. Webber patted her back, and she nodded at him. _I'm okay._

Lexie was crying. The reporter referenced their shooting, the one that killed Charles and Reed. Owen and Teddy came in. April felt unsteady on her feet.

* * *

Standing with the others in the ER, April fidgeted with the sleeves of her isolation gown. She had no way to prepare for what was coming.

Owen got their attention. "I have reports that the shooter is down. The cop we have to thank for that will be here shortly, along with the victims. Game faces on."

April had been working with Owen enough recently to know when he had something else he wanted to say, but he couldn't find the words, and motioned for them to head out into the emergency bay. She could hear sirens in the distance.

Fifteen ambulances, Owen told them.

* * *

It wasn't until many hours later that April felt like she had a second to stop, breathe, exist outside of doctor mode, where her sole focus was keeping those twenty-six patients alive. Owen had trusted her to oversee outpatient recovery, she helped save a heroic cop with blood in his belly, and all twenty-five of those twenty-six patients were definitely alive.

She had to know. She knew Teddy and Cristina had the shooter, patient #26, in OR 1, and she had to know if he'd make it. Her mind knew it would be good if he lived, even if her heart was unsure.

Up in the gallery, it was already a busy place. Bailey and Stark came in at the same time as she did, joining Webber, Derek, Meredith, Lexie, Jackson, and Alex. April sat right between Jackson and Alex.

"Long day," she muttered to no one in particular.

"I hear you were killing outpatient recovery," Alex said, ignoring the clear problematic phrasing. "Congrats, Apes."

She gave him a faint smile. "Thank you." By this point, she could look him in the eyes and feel absolutely nothing, which made it a lot easier to be friendly.

Teddy and Cristina were still working hard.

"So that's the shooter?" April asked.

"That's him," Jackson said, voice stiff.

"Avery's thinking about pulling an Izzie: cutting some wires and killing a patient," Alex grumbled.

April had never heard this particular story about Izzie Stevens, whose name always came up a lot, but the look on Jackson's face was a little more concerning. "What's he talking about?" she whispered.

"I was being an idiot." Jackson shrugged it off, embarrassed. She squeezed his hand briefly.

"It's really easy to be an idiot on days like today."

Just then, Callie walked in with Arizona beside her.

"What? Dr. Robbins is back?" she said.

Alex scoffed. "You're way behind."

April wanted to go and say hello, but from the look on Arizona's face, she'd had a hard day and wouldn't be interested in sharing details about her time in Malawi.

* * *

The shooter lived. Twenty-six patients out of twenty-six, all alive.

She'd been sitting in that gallery for forty-five minutes, mostly in silence, before Teddy and Cristina confirmed it: their surgery had been a success.

Webber broke the silence. "We saw twenty-six patients. Twenty-six victims… And we had no casualties."

As the emotions of the day, all the fear she'd repressed, came rushing in with the relief, the tightness grew in April's throat. Lexie held her head in her hands.

"No one died today," Webber said.

She couldn't help it; she started to cry. She could feel Jackson's eyes on her as she hung her head.

Half of the surgeons in that gallery were crying, so she didn't feel too ridiculous, unlike the other times she'd ended up crying in public. There was a solidarity. _They all went through the shooting, too,_ she reminded herself. The others usually refused to talk about it, so it had become easy to think she and Jackson were alone.

And then Derek laughed, just a little under his breath. And then Meredith was laughing, and then everyone was laughing.

She couldn't have explained it, not really. It was a mixture of the elation of relief, the wonder that everything could've worked out so well in their disaster-prone hospital, the adrenaline running through their systems. But laughing felt so good that they just kept going—which got even easier once Stark stormed out of the room, muttering how much he hated SGMW.

And then when Webber told Arizona Robbins, rightful heir to the pediatrics throne, that she would have to be working under Stark, April wasn't sure if she'd be able to stop laughing for at least an hour.


	13. start me up

Chapter 13: **start me up**

"'Unwilling to delegate'? I am a great delegator. It's the key to why I'm so organized." April took a swig of her beer. Webber's secret evaluation had really put her in a bad mood. It was like a pop quiz. And when she should've been studying for this metaphorical pop quiz, she was apparently doodling in her notebook because Webber had had nothing good to say about her performance.

Jackson laughed, which she would've reprimanded him for, if Alex's flavor of the day hadn't strutted into the kitchen in no more than a t-shirt.

"Oh, hi, uh… Just wanted to get some water," Laurel said.

"Well," Jackson said. "The glasses are in that cabinet."

 _He's using his sexy voice!_ she realized, half-amused and half-annoyed as she watched his gaze travel down Laurel's bare legs.

As Laurel reached up for a glass, the stretch left her a little exposed. April caught Jackson craning his head to get a better look and immediately slapped his head.

"Ow!" he complained, glaring right back at her.

With a sigh April took another drink. Jackson had the decency to look embarrassed for just a second before grinning again.

When Laurel had left with her water, April set her bottle down.

"You're a pig," she said, rolling her eyes.

"I mean, how do you _not_ look? Maybe it's time I place the needs of the student before my own," he added, with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle.

April groaned, tempted to slap him again. "You're as bad as Karev."

"I wish I were. Maybe then Webber would've considered me a potential Chief Resident today." Jackson snorted. The fact that anyone thought Alex Karev would hold that position better than the other residents was both hilarious and a little insulting.

"You wouldn't even want to be Chief Resident," April pointed out. "It would cut away from surgery time, Mr. Future Cardiothoracic God."

He considered this. "But, Chief Resident does look really good for getting fellowships."

April dropped her head to the table. _This day has defeated me._ "Yeah. I know." It had always been a step in her plan, since she started med school, but as it turned out, everyone else had the same idea.

"I get it, April. I'm sure you want to be Chief Resident more than any of the rest of us. You'd be perfect for it." Her mood brightened a bit with his words, and he continued: "Me, Meredith, Cristina, Alex… We would only want the job for its title, and maybe to boss each other around a bit. But you, you'd probably transform the hospital."

She smirked. "Oh, definitely. And I'd start by keeping Alex at a minimum of fifty feet from all poor med students."

"If that's the power that Chief Resident holds, I'm fighting you for it."

April must've had just enough beer to make her a little adventurous, because an idea struck her. "Let's do it."

"Um, do what?"

"Fight for Chief Resident. Right now, we'll have a competition." As soon as the notion was in her head, she was getting excited about it. "And the loser does bathroom cleaning alone for the next month."

Jackson shook his head. "That's too depressing."

"Fine. Then the other person attends bathroom cleaning for moral support and music selection."

He held out his hand. "Deal."

Ten minutes later, the three competitions were set up. Meredith was with Derek, Alex with Laurel, so it was just the two of them. (April had suggested inviting Cristina over, but Jackson told her she was taking this way too seriously.)

 _He's not wrong_ , she knew. _I may have lost today, but I can win right now._

The first contest was knowledge-based. They had two minutes to list as many organs in the human body as possible.

"You're gonna win," Jackson muttered, scribbling his pen on his notepad till the ink was working properly. "Your memory's nearly as good as Lexie's."

"You write faster," April insisted. "Your handwriting is messy and nearly unreadable—and Altman would back me up—but it's an advantage." She sat up straight, then turned the kitchen timer. "And… go!"

 _All right, April. Start with endocrine glands. Then nervous system—central, peripheral—then digestive, then circulatory—cardiovascular then lymphatic. Oh, and sensory organs!_ She realized she hadn't even started writing, yet, and Jackson had already scribbled three organs. _Crap! Pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid—shoot, I missed an "i" in pituitary. Fixed it. Adrenal, pancreas, pineal. CNS is easy: brain and spiral cord. Do I count the brainstem separately?_

Unsurprisingly in retrospect, April got too caught up in the details. She listed 37 in the two minutes, while Jackson got 49.

"You forgot skin? April, that's everybody's favorite fun fact. 'What's the largest organ in the human body?' Get it together."

The second competition was geared toward surgical skill. April had retrieved the suturing kit she used to study as a med student from its buried spot in her closet. They had five minutes to suture a sponge back together (Jackson promised to buy replacements at the store tomorrow so Meredith wouldn't get mad), demonstrate five types of knots on some grapes out of the fridge, and, lastly, successfully remove five foreign objects out of Cavity Sam from the Operation game, without the buzzer going off.

April was the first one done suturing her sponge. "Ha! On to knots, Jackson!"

"Speed doesn't matter, it's technique." They had texted Alex to get him to come down and be the judge.

"It does matter, because I'm going to be the first one to Operation, and I can do the easy ones."

"Crap." He snorted and picked up his pace.

He didn't manage to catch up, though, and April had the first pass at Cavity Sam. She picked the funny bone, the Adam's apple, the broken heart, "water on the knee," and the wish bone, just to show off a little.

"You're running out of time, Jackson!" she said. "One minute left."

He dashed into the living room from the kitchen. "Don't you worry about me," he muttered, but when he saw the options she'd left him in the game, he groaned.

By the time the buzzer had gone off, he had gotten four out, and buzzed on one of them.

"All right!" April said, cheerily. "That's a one-point deduction for the buzz, and one for the fifth foreign object you were unable to remove."

"You're gonna lose points for sloppy workmanship on your sutures, though," he said.

Just then, Alex came thumping down the stairs. "What is it, Avery? I was kind of in the middle of something."

April held up her notepad. "We need a judge for our competition. Can you give us each scores out of ten for grape and sponge stitching?"

Alex considered this a minute. "Yeah, okay."

He ended up taking his job very seriously. After careful studying of each sponge, he looked up. "Avery's is better. I'll give him an 8.5, and Apes, you get a 6.75."

She crossed her arms. "That's bullcrap."

"Your refusal to cuss is bullcrap," Alex said, laughing at her. "Now let's see these grape knots."

Jackson snorted. "That could be a really horrible off-brand Grape-Nuts cereal."

After side-eyeing Jackson, Alex evaluated each of their grapes. "Avery, your friction knot is a frickin' mess."

"I know," Jackson admitted. "I had to get to Cavity Sam!"

"Operation, the game," April added, when Alex just stared at him. "Come on, what are the scores?"

"Well…" Alex was clearly enjoying teasing her by drawing out the tension. "Kepner's friction knot isn't much better, but her square knot definitely is… April gets an 8, Jackson a 6.5."

"I win!" April shrieked, after running through the math quickly in her head.

Jackson pointed at the living room, where Operation was still on the coffee table. "It's that stupid Charley Horse!" he exclaimed, eyes wide.

"I'm going back to bed," Alex said wearily, but he was smirking.

"I win! I win! I'm gonna be chief resident, and you have to clean the bathroom by yourself!" April taunted.

He pointed at her. "You're coming, though."

"Yeah, and I'm putting my 90s boyband playlist on shuffle," she said. She thought that would get a rise out of him, but he just grinned.

"Works for me."

 **A/N: The news from this past week sucks.**


	14. don't deceive me (please don't go)

Chapter 14: **don't deceive me (please don't go)**

It was 11 PM. Jackson had just gotten back from work, the last to get back to Meredith's for the night. He closed the door behind himself as quietly as he could, barely able to make out the staircase in the dark. It had been a foggy day in Seattle; between that and the new moon, there was no light coming through the windows.

Suddenly, a crash.

Jackson jumped. _There's someone in the house…_ A groan came from the kitchen.

Pulse immediately rushing, he reached for the first thing he could grab—a never-used umbrella. (After moving to Washington, he quickly learned that locals scoff at umbrella users.) He crept toward the kitchen, the source of the noise.

When he rounded the corner, he nearly ran into the invader.

"Aah!" April shrieked, balking at his raised umbrella.

" _April?_ "

He could barely see her glaring in the low light. "What the heck, Jackson?"

"I thought you were a robber!" He reached past her to flick on the living room light. "What are you doing in the dark?" Then he got a good look at her face. "Whoa, what happened?"

Blood was smeared across her nose and upper lip.

"I gave myself a bloody nose trying to get down the mixing bowls," she muttered, rubbing at her face. "Dropped the stupid bowls on my face."

He wanted to laugh. "What did you need mixing bowls for at 11?"

"I was gonna make muffins."

"But why?"

April groaned. "You know how we had all that premade mix in the freezer? The stuff Izzie left? We ran out last week."

"So?" He was still trying to get over the fact that she had injured herself baking muffins in a shroud of darkness.

"The first Sunday of every months is always Muffin Sunday. It's on the calendar and everything, right? So we have muffins. _Alex_ has a muffin. And I'm worried if there's not a muffin for him tomorrow, he'll get all sad. So I thought I'd secretly whip up a batch, and he'd never be the wiser."

Jackson shook his head. "I don't know. Izzie's muffins are incredible."

"I'm a good baker!" April insisted, hands on her hips.

"Why in the dark, though? Did you think the light was going to wake Karev up upstairs?"

"No, the light's just out," she said. "I was gonna replace it, but the bulbs are above the mixing bowls, remember? So I was up on my tiptoes, trying to reach the light bulbs, but I saw the mixing bowls, and I was like, 'oh, I'm gonna need those,' and lo and behold, it didn't go well."

He moved past her into the kitchen, saying over his shoulder. "Okay—go fix your bloody face, and I'll get a new light in. Try not to injure yourself more on the way."

"No promises."

A few minutes later, April had gotten cleaned up and the kitchen was lit.

"Do you really think Karev's gonna care so much about a muffin? You could just buy some at the store. The tradition would be kept alive."

April shook her head, bustling around the kitchen in pursuit of ingredients. "You know he and Izzie were married? I mean, in a she's-about-to-die sort of marriage, but still. They were seriously in love."

"And you're confident that transfers to muffins?"

She shrugged. "Well, I don't know. I just was thinking about it. Will you get me down that cookbook?"

Since he was sitting on the counter, he had easy access to the cookbook shelf. "The green one?"

"Yeah. It's Meredith's—mostly empty, but she said Izzie scribbled in her muffin recipe on request. I want to get the proportions perfect." He passed it to her and she whistled. "Ooh, Izzie's a genius."

Jackson laughed. "So you are a baking expert?"

"It's just science, Jackson. Don't act so condescending. And Izzie could've been, like, a muffin astrophysicist." When he didn't respond, she asked a question. "Why'd you get back so late?"

He groaned. It had been a humiliating day. "Cristina and I were competing over Altman all day, and she totally won, so I got stuck doing all the paperwork."

"How'd she manage that?" April held her finger on her lips as she scoured Meredith's cabinet, until she found the cinnamon.

 _This'll make April nice and annoyed with me._ "I basically called Cristina out for avoiding the ER, trying to get the surgery for myself. Then she was crying."

"No way."

"I know, I was surprised, too. So I spent the next hour looking for Owen, 'cause Mere told me to. Turns out, he was at the dentist."

April laughed. "No, I mean there's no way she was actually crying. Cristina's got thick skin. Your little jab wouldn't phase her, but it gave her an easy way to take you out of the game. She played you, Jackson."

It dawned on him that she was definitely right. "I'm gonna kill her."

"Be nice, or you don't get any muffin batter. And this is going to be delicious batter." She shook her spoon at him.

That was enough motivation to relax. "I just don't see how I'm supposed to get anywhere in cardio with Cristina Yang fighting for everything I want. If it was anyone else." He scooted off the counter and towards the fridge. "Is this half a beer mine or Meredith's?"

April glanced over; she always remembered that sort of thing. "That's yours. Mere put her hers on the top shelf. And you're right. You pulled the short straw when it comes to specialty competition."

"What about you? Still thinking neuro?"

"Not sure." She stirred harder. "I like it, but Lexie's really good. I'm not sure I want to be competing with her photographic memory. And she's Derek's sister-in-law."

Jackson shook his head. "Wow, neither of us stand a chance."

"Nope. I don't know, maybe trauma. Hunt thinks I'd be good at it. Want some batter to go with your alcohol?"

He took the spoon from her. "I've been good enough?"

"I just feel bad for you. Middle of the night and you have nothing better to do than drink your troubles away and watch me bake muffins."

"I'm going downhill fast, April. I think I need more batter."

"Wait till I add in the chocolate chips."

"Deal."


	15. p y t (pretty young thing)

Chapter 15: **p.y.t. (pretty young thing)**

 _Genetically blessed._ Jackson wanted to groan as Mark Sloan's words kept running through his head on repeat.

Just when he'd been starting to think plastics could be a good specialty for him, Sloan had to make it about his freaking face. And apparently, about being his relationship lackey. So, instead of being in surgery, or practicing medicine at all, Jackson had spent the better part of his morning hunting down peanut butter cups and Lexie Grey.

Lexie, unsurprisingly, was not only upset that her father was in the hospital and that he had an inappropriately young "tatted-up skank" for a girlfriend. The bigger story was that Mark was having a baby.

 _Mark's having a baby… with who?_

Since it wasn't public knowledge, clearly, he tried to push the questions out of his mind as he headed in to lunch. Watching Lexie down those peanut butter cups had made him hungry, and it was nearly 2:30.

Apparently, his fellow surgeons had just as poor internal clocks as he did, because he quickly found a table with Cristina, Arizona, and April.

"Avery!" Cristina cheered, waving a French fry at him. "Please tell me you can get Kepner to stop complaining."

"If only," he muttered, smirking at April, who just rolled her eyes. He twirled his pasta on his fork. "What are you complaining about?"

"Callie," she said, with an apologetic glance at Arizona. "She's just being weird. She changed her mind on whether or not she wanted coffee at least four times in twenty seconds. And she asked me to 'speak differently.'"

"…Like in an accent?"

"That's what I thought!" April said, clearly satisfied. "Arizona thinks I was probably being too chipper."

Cristina snorted. "I think 'probably' is an understatement."

"Cut her some slack," Arizona said to April. "Trust me, she's having a rough couple of days."

April nodded, then turned to Jackson. "How's plastics?"

He'd told her he'd been looking forward to this rotation, and he could see the hope in her eyes. "I like it," he lied. "Sloan's keeping me busy." (That wasn't a lie.)

Cristina stood up, grabbing her empty tray. "You like it enough to leave cardio to me? I'm sick of you flitting about like a fly I have to keep swatting."

"Buzz," Jackson muttered, without answering.

When she left, Arizona frowned. "Don't let her bother you, Jackson."

"She's not," he said quickly. "Other stuff."

"Oh." Arizona's pager beeped. "Gotta go! I've got this little baby with a hypoplastic left heart, and—well, I should probably go not explain it to you."

April waved goodbye then scooted her chair closer to Jackson's. "All right, what's going on?"

He lowered her voice. "Sloan's got me checking up on Lexie, with her and Mere's dad in the hospital. Which is definitely not surgery, but he says he'll give me surgeries if I help him with this."

"What's up with you, attendings, and bribery?"

"Not sure. Anyway, I finally talked to Lexie, and she told me…" He checked that no one was listening and whispered, "Mark's having a baby with someone."

"No! What?"

He took a second to enjoy the shock on her face.

"I don't know any details, but I do know that she's mad at him. I think the door may have opened for Mr. Jackson Avery."

She saluted him. "The fates do shine upon you, sir." Her jovial expression dropped. "But give it a couple weeks. Don't be a weirdo, or capitalize on the collapse of her relationship. That's no way to start something."

"It doesn't have to be a 'thing,' April," Jackson said, even though he knew her advice was sound.

"You want it to be a thing. You like her."

"Yeah, and you like sherbet. That doesn't mean the two of you are going to enter a committed relationship and produce half a dozen sherbet-human hybrid offspring."

She burst into laughter. "I would if I could," she joked. "Sherbet's been better to me than any man."

"Even me?" he asked, feigning insult.

With a smile, April nodded. "You're almost as good as sherbet. But don't get ahead of yourself."

* * *

Jackson met April in the waiting room, where they always did when they were carpooling back home together. But today, unlike most days, her whole face lit up when she saw him and she started bouncing on her toes.

This display of excitement intrigued him, and he picked up his pace until he reached her. "What is it?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Guess what I learned during surgery today?"

"What, a new stitch?"

The cold air hit them like a wall as they walked outside, and Jackson quickly threw his hands into his pockets.

April waited until they were out of hearing distance of the front doors before she answered. "Nope. Callie's pregnant."

"Well, that pretty much answers the question of Mark's mysterious baby mama, doesn't it?"

"It definitely does. You're very welcome." She tipped her hat to him, but it was a beanie, so she just slid it down her forehead a little. This was such an awkward and April thing to do, and it made Jackson grin. "We make quite the investigative team."

"Elementary, my dear Watson."

April scoffed. "I'm the Sherlock for sure."

Now he had to admit something that was going to make her mad at him, which happened more with her than with other friends, since she had very high expectations. "I _may_ have just Lexie out to drinks."

He unlocked the door to the car—he'd timed his admission carefully—but April refused to get in.

"Jackson Avery, I told you to wait. And anyway, how was I supposed to get home if she said yes?"

"We could've dropped you off," he told her, laughing. "And, I know, and she said no, so I'm sure you were right. Of course… she did say maybe tomorrow."

With a dramatic sigh, April climbed into the passenger seat. "You're getting yourself into trouble. There's no way she's over him yet. And what about your interest in plastics? Do you really think Mark's going to like having you around if you're dating Lexie? Not to mention the fact that—"

"Just stop, April," he said. "You're right, I know. But I like her. I want to date her."

"Yeah, I know. I'm just saying the things I have to say."

"So you can tell me you told me so later?"

April frowned. "No. To be a good friend. I mean, the told-you-so might be a happy coincidence, but I'm just trying to look out for you."

As he backed out of their spot, Jackson smiled at her. "Well, thanks. I'll return the favor by letting you know that I'm pretty sure Dr. Stark has a thing for you."

Mouth open, expression confused, and completely silent, it took April at least a minute to recover from that piece of information.


	16. golden hour

Chapter 16: **golden hour**

 _Naturally, there's a guy in the OR with a knife in his head, and I'm stuck with paperwork._ April had been working with plastics all day—not her favorite rotation, since Sloan had as little interest in her as a surgeon as she had in plastics—and now he'd be consulting on knife-in-the-head-guy while she finished the paperwork he'd put off.

She realized Sloan had forgotten a signature on Maria Martinez's post-op— _east wing, here I come._

As she passed by the nurse's station, where Altman and Meredith were looking over an x-ray, Alex called out to her: "Hey, Kepner!"

"Yeah?" she turned to him with a smile. Maybe he'd have something interesting to tell her.

"How good are you at forging signatures?"

And her hope died. She scowled. "Even if I were good at forging signatures, I wouldn't do it. It's unethical, and probably illegal, so I'm sorry, you're just gonna have to finish signing your charts on your own."

Keeping up her brisk pace toward the other side of the hospital, April couldn't help but wish she were good at forging signatures, so she wouldn't have to cross Seattle Grace Mercy West for one nurse's name on a piece of paper.

Forty-five minutes later, she'd finally finished tidying up all of Sloan's leftover paperwork, and was looking forward to getting home. She'd hidden a third-cup of cookie dough in the back, and as long as Alex hadn't been snooping around too intensely, it would be waiting for her.

She was waiting by the entrance to the hospital. Alex and Jackson were going to the UW basketball game tonight and had promised to drop her off at home first. Alex only had two tickets, but she still wished she could go too. _Floor seats!_ April had grown up loving basketball. Not that she was any good at it, but she went to games with her dad and her sister Alice all the time.

But instead of Alex and Jackson strolling towards her at 7:00, it was Jackson and Lexie.

"Hi, April!" Lexie said, grinning. "Jackson said we're giving you a ride."

Staring at Jackson, who refused to meet her eyes, April nodded. "Yeah… Where's Alex?"

"He decided he didn't care about his floor seats," Jackson said, opening the door and ushering them outside. "So Lexie and I are going."

April nodded. Jackson was very lucky Lexie was right there or she'd be telling him off right now. _THIS IS A BAD IDEA_ , her head was screaming, but she bit her tongue as they walked out to the car.

"What case were you on today?" Lexie asked cheerfully.

"I had an emergency liver transplant."

Both Jackson and Lexie stopped, turning to look at her with shock in their eyes.

April opened the car door—she was taking shotgun—with a laugh. "Just kidding. I spent the day watching Mark Sloan stitch people, was not allowed to do anything, then spent my evening doing his paperwork while he helped you guys with your knife-to-the-head guy."

While Jackson was talking about sending their recently-stabbed patient off to the game, April was studying Lexie's reaction in the rearview.

She hadn't meant to bring up Mark, but having done so, it gave her a chance to see how Lexie would react. A little, near-imperceptible eye-raise of piqued interest at his name, expression shifting slightly—less natural, more controlled. It wasn't atypical, to react like that when you hear about your ex, and April couldn't read too much into it, she decided.

Jackson started the car, and they headed home.

* * *

April wasn't alone in the house. Derek got home ten minutes after she did.

"There's leftover lasagna in the fridge," she reminded him as he headed into the kitchen for a late dinner. She'd made it two days before, since February 15th was her mother's birthday and she was feeling sentimental. The Kepner family lasagna recipe was a big hit with all her roommates, so she was glad she made two of them.

"You're an angel, April," he said, and she listened happily to the hum of the microwave then the clinking of his silverware as he ate. She sat in the living room, flipping through channels with disinterest.

When Derek started towards the stairs, probably going to his and Meredith's bedroom, April asked, "When's Mere going to be home?"

"She's running the ER all night. I'll be passing off the car keys when I get to work tomorrow."

As he walked upstairs, April wanted to groan. She was just bored. Derek was nice, but not usually in the mood to socialize with the other residents when Meredith wasn't around. She thought maybe she and Meredith could have some wine and popcorn and watch a movie.

Instead, April broke out her boards study guide, her highlighter set, and her flashcards. _Might as well be productive._

* * *

Lexie and Jackson didn't get back until nearly midnight.

"How was the game?" she asked, as they stormed into the house, laughing.

Jackson grinned. "It was awesome."

"Huskies won?"

"Oh yeah," Lexie said, pumping her fist. "Go U-Dub! Best school in the world!"

She looked a little tipsy, so April had reason to suspect they'd gotten some celebratory drinks afterwards. "What about your own alma mater?"

"Go Harvard!" Lexie added, giggling. She glanced at the clock and snorted. " _Okay_ , I have to work in six hours. I'm going to bed."

Jackson plopped down beside April on the couch as Lexie made her way to her room. "I can tell by the look on your face that you're annoyed with me. And before you say it, I know you think it's a bad idea for me to be taking Lexie out, but I think she's over him."

"I think you're wrong," April muttered, closing her study guide. "You know, you could've taken me to the game."

His expression softened a little. "Come on, April, I've been trying to go on a date with Lexie."

"So?"

"So, I see you all the time." He frowned. "That sounded wrong. Anyway, it's not like you care about basketball."

"I love basketball!" she protested. "And is Lexie really some basketball fanatic?"

A little surprised, Jackson leaned his head back against the couch. "Sorry, April. I didn't think you'd care."

She nodded. "I know. I just had a bad day. I'm choosing to be mad at you."

"Fine. Can you be mad at me and also let me have more of your lasagna?"

"It's midnight."

"And I'm hungry."


	17. not responsible

Chapter 17: **not responsible**

At the earliest opportunity, Jackson knocked on April's door.

She opened it in her pajamas (patterned with sheep, also in pajamas), and he shook his head. "Sorry, you've got to get dressed."

April groaned. "Why?"

"Because you know how you've been begging me to try that weird milkshake place in Capitol Hill? We're going, right now."

"I'm not sure even that is worth changing out of my PJs."

Jackson raised his eyebrows. "Oh, really? I heard you can mix in any candy you want…"

"I'll be downstairs in ten minutes."

* * *

To be safe, Jackson waited until they were sitting with their ridiculously sugary milkshakes before he brought up the topic at hand, the reason for this sudden trip. April was happily drinking her caramel-filled, M&Ms and Heath bar concoction, red hair extra bright under the neon lights of the shop window.

"Okay, April…"

She looked up without taking the straw from her mouth.

"So, earlier, when you came into the bathroom to talk to Lexie—"

"Did she tell you?!" April asked, taking a temporary break from her milkshake. "She couldn't keep a secret for five minutes?"

He grimaced. "Well, she didn't have to tell me, exactly."

April stared at him, face blank.

"I heard you," Jackson clarified, his smile growing slowly. It was hard not to be charmed by someone as innocent as April.

"You were eavesdropping? On the _bathroom_?"

Before she could go off about how creepy that was, he laughed. "April, no. I was in the shower, too."

Realization dawned on her, and he could see her mind going a mile a minute trying to decide how to react. She ended up taking a deep sigh then groaning. "So you're seeing Lexie… And you think that's a good idea?"

"That's not what this is about!" Jackson insisted, pointing his spoon at her and dripping a little vanilla ice cream on the counter. "This is about the fact that you, apparently, are 'seeing' Stark."

Like he knew it would, that put an immediate damper on the flames of her disappointment in him.

"I don't know… He asked me out and I said yes! I'm not sure why I did, really, except he's nice, I suppose, and it's not like men are falling over each other to ask me out, and if he's nice why shouldn't I got on a date with him? There's nothing wrong with him. Under his exterior, he is a nice man. Not that I expected to say yes, but I did, and now we're going on a date…"

The speed at which April Kepner could get all flustered was a marvel of modern science.

"Calm down," Jackson said, smirking.

She nodded, took a long sip of her milkshake. "I haven't been on a date in so long."

"When was the last time you went on a date with someone that much older than you?" Jackson teased.

She shrugged, not taking it as a joke. "I know, it feels weird. But we're both adults right?"

"He's just been an adult a lot longer than you have." _Like, twenty years longer._

When she dropped her head to the table, exasperated, making their glasses shake, Jackson felt like he needed to comfort her a little.

In reality, Jackson wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of April and Stark. _Actually, I'm pretty sure he's a jerk._ April had a quality of seeing the best in people, believing the best in people. She wouldn't be deterred by a rough exterior—or else, she never would've become friends with Karev—and finding a relatively golden heart within was like the ultimate prize for her. _But Stark_? His heart was bronze at best. _And what does he want from April, anyway?_ His personality was so callous and unfeeling, Jackson could not figure out a pure motivation for him to want to date someone as sunshiny as April. _She's young and pretty. April is not interested in a relationship based on that_. Then again, he decided it wasn't up to him to tell April what she was interested in. _So, comfort._

"It's just a date, April, you're not accepting a proposal."

This apparently raised her spirits enough, at least in combination with the extended sip of milkshake she took, because she smiled at him. "I get now why Lexie didn't let me pee when I came into the bathroom."

Jackson snorted, nearly exhaling his milkshake. "April, I was dying. I kept nearly slipping, in this awkward position against the wall to stay out of view, and staying silent was so impossible."

She shook her head. "Please don't make a habit of making me unconsciously privy to whatever you and Lexie are up to."

He winked. "No promises. I think she likes to be a bit risky."

"Ew."

"I promise I'll get you a milkshake every time."

"I paid!"

"Only cause I forgot my wallet."


	18. this is how we do it

Chapter 18: **this is how we do it**

She couldn't help it; she couldn't get Alex's words out of her head.

 _I'm not "screwing my way to the top,"_ she reminded herself, cringing at his choice of words. And when she thought, _I am not screwing Stark,_ she just heard it in his mocking voice. Same with _and we're not even dating!_

Stark had made that clear. They just hung out. _We're friends._

 _Naked friends_ , the Alex in her head added, and April groaned out loud.

Today sucked. Any day that started with her running into Jackson and Lexie making out in the laundry room when all she wanted was clean clothes was a bad day. (And Jackson had not been following through on his milkshake promise.)

Even worse, the only friends she had to talk about her guy problems were Alex Karev and Jackson Avery. _That's pathetic._ Reed would've given her so much crap for the current state of her life.

And now, anytime she thought about Robert Stark, who she was genuinely enjoying getting to know, all she could think was _naked friends._

For not the first time, Alex had seriously ruined her day.

April checked her watch—it was time for Callie's baby shower. She figured that might help her mood. _Babies are good. Food's good._ There was no clear downside.

Naturally, a downside emerged.

The conversation at the onesie-decorating station quickly centered it around herself and Stark, thanks to Cristina and Meredith.

April tried to focus on her design, a little penguin holding some colorful balloons, but it didn't take long before her temper took over. With Cristina on one side of her and Alex the other, April had been doomed from the start.

"He's not gay, he doesn't have herpes, and I'm not using him to get cool surgeries!" she exclaimed, and accidentally smudged her penguin's wing into more of a cape, flowing in the Arctic breeze. _Okay, Super Penguin._ "We have a lot to talk about, okay? He's really interesting once you get to know him."

"Which is why she's taking her pants off for him tonight," Alex added.

April tried to stop her face from blushing as Meredith, Cristina, and Lexie gushed over this misinformation, in agreement that April going to his place meant they had to sleep together.

"Nobody's pants are coming off," April insisted.

 _I hate this_ , April kept thinking, as the others continued confidently, as if she hadn't spoken.

"And with an older man, too," Lexie said. "It's very impressive."

"I am not taking my pants off for Stark!" April said, a lot louder than she intended to. As half the room turned her way, April sunk in her chair and wondered that a simple baby shower had turned into a torture device.

Jackson showed up, taking a look at Lexie's "cutie pie" design while Alex proudly displayed the scrubs he'd drawn on his onesie, which were admittedly very adorable. There was a tiny little pocket drawn on and everything.

"Yes, I will do a consult now," Lexie said awkwardly, standing to follow Jackson out of the party.

"You're not fooling anyone!" April called after them.

* * *

The way her schedule had worked out for the day, it hadn't matched with anyone else's. No ride back to Meredith's for her. So she took the bus from Seattle Center to Queen Anne, and walked to Meredith's house. It wasn't often she ended up having to do that alone, but she didn't mind. The walk was kind of relaxing in the cool March evening air. It gave her some time to try and figure out exactly why she'd cancelled her date with Stark, and to digest the whole following conversation. He had said he didn't want to be just friends with her. And he acted like he expected her to not want him. And he thought she didn't like him at all. And everything about it had left her feeling awkward, confused, and guilty.

When she got home, she headed into the kitchen to make some popcorn, thinking maybe it might be nice to watch a movie anyway. _I had been looking forward to_ From Here to Eternity, _after all._ That still sounded relaxing.

What wasn't relaxing was walking back into the living room and seeing Jackson and Lexie making out on the couch.

She was so sick of having their relationship constantly flaunted in front of her. _It's so easy for them._

Something in her broke. _I'm watching my stupid movie!_

April shoved Jackson's legs off one half of the couch, ignoring their protests as she interrupted them.

"Do you mind?" Jackson asked, pointedly.

"Nope." She squared her shoulders. "Although, if it were me, and I had someone to make out with, I might want to do it in private. Like, in a room, where there's a door. That locks."

Jackson propped his legs back up, on her lap, as she flicked on the TV and switched to her desired channel. He returned to paying all his attention to Lexie.

 _Wow, they really refuse to take a hint, don't they?_

April held her thumb down on the volume-up button until the TV was very, _very_ loud.

 _From Here to Eternity._

Jackson stared at her, but Lexie apparently accepted their fate. "Okay, let's go upstairs," she relented, without disguising the annoyance in her voice.

"Yeah," Jackson muttered, and he was probably still staring at her, but April had turned her focus to the movie as the music started up more dramatically. He stole a handful of her popcorn, but that was nothing unusual. Jackson always stole her food.

April wasn't even sure why she was upset. It could've been because she'd made Stark uncomfortable, it could've been because he made her uncomfortable, it could've been Alex, Cristina, and Meredith's teasing, and it could've been Jackson and Lexie. In reality, she was pretty sure the reality of her life was just really catching up to her: _I am so alone._

The movie was not relaxing, because she couldn't focus on it. Her thoughts spun through five options in rotation: _Reed is dead. / Jackson's with Lexie now. He's busy. / Alex isn't really my friend, he just likes teasing me. / Cristina and Meredith and Lexie don't really care about me. / Stark hates me now. / Reed is dead._

When the film was almost over, it felt like it had just started. The difference was an empty bowl of popcorn, and a slightly darker living room.

And then difference was Jackson, who appeared and dropped onto the couch beside her.

"What's up?" April muttered, trying and failing not to sound like a grumpus.

"Lexie went to bed."

"And you?"

"Wasn't sleepy. What's going on in the movie? Who's that guy?"

"No idea."

Jackson smirked. "I say he's a bugle-player. He had a great future, but he has a disease that's making his lips lose their strength every day."

"Yeah, that's probably it," she said, smiling. "Who's the girl, then?"

He thought about that very seriously. "She's his nurse, and considering a lip transplant. But then, tragically, they'd never be able to kiss."

"Love a good tragic ending," she murmured, scooting closer so she could lean against him.

It had been a while since they had sat like that together, but Jackson must have somehow understood that she needed it because he wrapped an arm around her shoulder like he always used to, and they finished the rest of the movie, which unfortunately did not involve any lip transplants. There was, however, a rendition of "Taps," played on what Jackson insisted was, in fact, a bugle.

 **A/N: I came up with Jackson's plot before I looked up _From Here to Eternity_ , and found it very funny that there was actually a bugle/trumpet involved :) thanks for reading!**


	19. song beneath the song

Chapter 19: **song beneath the song**

 _There's too many people in that room. No reason for me to go in too._

Jackson stared into the trauma room where half of his friends were crowded around Callie Torres. April had just shoved her way in to help Hunt with trauma, but Sloan wouldn't want him— _crap._

Pushing through the door, Jackson started assessing Callie from a plastics perspective. Sloan was going to need his help this time. _It's Callie. And his baby._ Jackson wanted to shudder at the fear in Callie's eyes as he assessed a burn on her shin, but he had to focus. _She's gonna make it,_ he told himself over and over.

Sloan's presence was a constant in his periphery, watching. Waiting for a fetal heartbeat.

Lucy made everyone shut up so she could listen with the fetal doppler. When that heartbeat came out, strong and loud, Jackson didn't relax, but he felt one ounce of weight lift from his shoulders.

Then the sound he'd been dreading.

"V-FIB!" he shouted, reaching back for an AED kit. His heart was pounding. Of course, incoming trauma like this always kick-started adrenaline, but this was Callie.

Arizona and Mark watched on, helpless, and they defibrillated her once.

Teddy called for the paddles to be charged to 200 as she continued CPR. Jackson watched the reading until it was right, then told her, "Charged to 200."

Another pulse of electricity, and there it was. "Sinus tach," he recognized.

"She's back," Cristina said.

Meredith ordered the Ambu bag and they rushed her gurney out of trauma towards an operating room, with April pulling the monitor.

Jackson pushed one end of the bed, full of nervous energy but repressing it. Callie was far from out of the woods. With Sloan out of the picture, he was the closest thing to a plastics surgeon around.

When they reached the elevator, only April, Webber, Teddy, Bailey, and Lucy were permitted to accompany Callie.

"Too many people," Webber insisted, and Jackson knew he was right. "Get out!"

Sloan and Cristina bolted out of the elevator to take the stairs, and Jackson followed after.

* * *

The OR was full. Derek had to manage her subdural and epidural hematomas, with Lexie assisting, but mostly keeping an eye on Callie. Teddy and Cristina were representing cardio. Bailey for general. Meredith had scrubbed in, and April had her place next to Owen. Trauma was obviously a huge part of Callie's surgery. Jackson stood right besides April, focusing on keep his lifesaving hands from shaking. Alex and Lucy were monitoring the baby. Not to mention, the room was swarmed with scrub nurses and an anesthesiologist.

They sent Lexie out quickly, to keep an eye on Mark, and she met Jackson's eyes for just a moment before leaving. Jackson wasn't surprised. It barely even registered.

While April and Owen were working on the liver laceration, Bailey was trying to control bleeders, Derek and Meredith were targeting the hematomas, and Jackson was helping wherever he was needed, her contractions started.

It took a minute to get those under control, and Jackson felt like his world was a blur. They decided they needed to close her up temporarily, give her some time to recover, or she'd bleed out.

"So what happens now?" April asked, and Jackson could hear how scared she was.

Bailey's voice was all kindness. She was good under pressure, knew what everyone needed. "Now we get her up to the ICU and see if she lives for the next 24 hours. If she makes it, we go in again."

 _How can that be Callie she's talking about?_

* * *

He found April in the intern locker rooms, of all places. He wasn't sure he'd even been there before; by the time the Mercy Westers joined Seattle Grace, they'd all already been residents.

But there she was, trying to eat some salad for dinner, tear stains on her face, leaning against a locker in the back corner. She didn't want to talk. She'd spent her afternoon with Callie, and running labs, and staring at that monitor like sheer force of will could change its readings. That's what Jackson had observed, at least, whenever he passed by, which was a lot considering how out of the way the ICU was from his patients. April didn't want to talk about it.

So he talked to her instead. He told her how he'd been sent to report to Lexie, to give her the rundown of the surgery. How they couldn't decide whether or not to deliver the baby before Callie goes back to the OR tomorrow. He told her Lexie wanted to know how Sloan was doing. How he'd tried to be understanding and how he hadn't been sure what to say.

April nodded and wrapped her hand in his for a second before leaving, back to Callie's room.

* * *

After Callie finally woke up, Jackson knew it was time to leave the hospital. He'd been there for at least forty-eight hours, and he needed a shower and a few hours of solid sleep.

Lexie came with him. He told her he wasn't interested in a relationship with her if she was still in love with someone else, and she nodded, and he took her home. The signal wasn't clear. She slept, innocently, in his bed with him, in the same way that April slept in his bed a couple of nights after the shooting. It was easier to keep bad dreams at bay there was someone just a few inches away.

Jackson knew April saw Lexie come sleep in his room, but she didn't say a word about it the next morning.

April passed him a cup of coffee. No one else was awake.

"If she or Sofia hadn't made it, I don't…" April faltered.

"I know," Jackson said.

She turned to him, all seriousness. "Don't ever get in a car crash, okay? Stay away from anything that'll land you in that OR."

He shook her on it. "Okay, April."

"I'm serious." She stood. "You want cereal?" It wasn't really a question. They both loved really sugary, horrible-for-you cereals. It was the kind of day for some Reese's Puffs. He didn't even bother answering.

She set the bowl in front of him. "You're my person, so you're not allowed to code on a single bed in that hospital. Or any other hospital. You keep yourself safe. You stay right here with me."

"Only if you promise to do the same."

With a nod, April held up a spoonful of cereal. "Cheers."

"Cheers."

Setting her spoon down again, she chewed thoughtfully, then waited until he was making eye contact with her before continuing. "I really am serious. If you went away, I don't know what I'd do."

It wasn't hard to see that she was nervous about saying that. April was always worried about being too attached, "too much" in general. A series of bad friendships had built her a horrible self-esteem, and Jackson considered it his personal mission to build her up again, if just a little.

"Me either." He wanted to throw in some joke about all the things she does for him: laundry, helping with bathroom cleaning, cooking and getting him coffee, but he forced himself to leave it at that.

 **A/N: Sorry it's been so long since there's been an update. I've started a busy quarter at school, but hopefully will still be updating this story about once a week. Also, in honor of this being the musical episode, I snuck in some lyrics from a good old Japril song, though not necessarily an iconic one. Let me know if you caught it :)**


	20. it's a long way back

Chapter 20: **it's a long way back**

 **A/N: I wanted to reference a specific country for Asha, the African child that April is assigned to in Alex's program, but couldn't find reference to one in the show, outside of April mentioning East Africa in the next episode, so I picked Ethiopia.**

April swished her ice in circles in her glass. It wasn't even alcohol, just iced tea.

A lot had been riding on that day. Alex's African kids arrived for the exchange program. The one assigned to her, Asha, was a ten-year-old Ethiopian girl with AIDS, who had been injured six years ago in an explosion. That was a lot to think about, especially in conjunction with her attempts to learn Swahili, so she could communicate with Asha directly. And then there was Callie and Sofia. After 12 weeks, they were released from the hospital today. April had been Sofia's doctor for more than two months, and was going to miss seeing her sweet face every day. She was just so glad that Sofia had pushed past all those scary make-or-break landmarks after her traumatic birth.

The point was, it had been a long day, and she was already too worked up to add alcohol to the mix, even though Jackson, Lexie, Cristina, and Owen had wanted to celebrate at Joe's.

She was the only one there, anyway. _I guess they all got held up by their patients._

April checked her watch. Nearly 10:00— _I'm going home_ , she decided. She had a car, so Lexie and Jackson would just have to take the bus. _That's what they get for being so late._

Standing and slinging her bag over her shoulder, she heard the bell hung over the door jingle, and glanced over for the hundredth time that evening.

Of course, this time, there they were.

Owen and Cristina came in, shedding their rain jackets and shaking off raindrops before walking to the bar. "Kepner!" Cristina cheered when she saw her, so uncharacteristically peppy that April wondered if she'd managed to already get drunk.

April sat back down, forced a smile. "Hey! What took you so long?"

"Sorry, April," Owen said, taking a seat beside her. "Karev had me extra evaluations on half the kids. I gave yours a lookover."

"Asha?" Owen nodded, and April frowned. "I already examined her when she arrived."

Cristina snorted as she leaned over the bar. "Devil's Spawn's just nervous. If he messes this up, there goes his shot at Chief Resident. Hey, Joe!"

"Black widow?" Joe guessed her drink of choice.

"Yep." Cristina leaned back in her chair, satisfied, then looked past Owen and April. "Wait, Avery and Lexie haven't showed up yet?"

"Nope," April confirmed, thanking Joe as he refilled her drink from.

Owen patted April's shoulder. "So, how do you like peds?"

"Huh?"

"Well, the last few months you seem to be spending all your time in pediatrics. I know you were on Sofia's case, but even before that."

April blushed. She had a habit of taking anything inquisitive as a veiled accusation. "Well, I hadn't spent enough hours in that rotation, and then with Sofia… But I… I mean, I learned a lot from Rob—Dr. Stark. Of course, now, I suppose—"

"Breathe, Kepner," Cristina muttered, happily sipping her cocktail.

"It's all right, April," Owen said. "I was just curious if you were still considering specializing in trauma. I think you've got a lot of potential as a trauma surgeon."

Now she was definitely blushing. "Thank you, Dr. Hunt!"

"You know you can call me Owen, especially when we're not in the hospital."

"Owen," she corrected, and took a sip of her tea. "Oh, and I am very seriously considering trauma!"

"Good."

The bell rung again, and Jackson and Lexie strode in.

Jackson spotted them and waved. He and Lexie sat on the other side of April.

"Crazy day, huh?" he asked, then ordered two beers.

"My little Kenyan exchange baby is _so_ sweet!" Lexie gushed.

April smiled at her. "Speaking of sweet, you guys should've seen Sofia pass her car seat test. My heart swelled when she got to the end of that hour—no apnea or bradycardia! What a little champ."

"My kid's the champ," Cristina said. "Not only does he have a ventricular septal defect, he's got Pentalogy of Cantrell. That's right. His skin grew directly onto his heart. What a gift I have been given."

Owen glared at her, but none of them bothered to point out what a horrible statement that was.

Jackson shook his head. "I just can't believe Karev pulled it off."

Nearly spitting out her drink, Lexie raised her hand. "Oh, I _have_ to tell you guys. But this never leaves this group. Got it?" They all nodded, though Owen and April were a bit more hesitant. "Alex nearly got himself detained. He was grifting people left and right! He was paying for the whole exchange out of pocket because he never actually secured the funding, but his pockets ran dry weeks ago."

" _What_?" Jackson, April, and Cristina exclaimed in unison. Owen just stared, open-mouthed.

Lexie nodded, satisfied by their responses. "Then today, while Alex is awaiting his arrest, nervously trying to get everything settled with the kids before the cops carry him away or whatever, he gets this letter from a lawyer—that patient, Gladys, ended up leaving him 200 _thousand_ dollars for the program."

Jackson swore and raised his glass. "To Karev, for narrowly avoiding fraud."

"And for helping sick African children," April added, and they toasted Alex.

Laughing, Lexie climbed off her stool. "Okay, we've got lots to celebrate. First, I've got to pee."

Cristina struck up a conversation with her husband, and April turned to Jackson. "Anything especially interesting happen to you today?"

He shook his head. "I just helped get all the African kids settled. You—besides Sofia?"

She looked down. "I tried to talk to Robert, tried to be nice…"

"Let me guess, he was not into that."

"Nope." April needed a radical change in subject; she regretted bringing Stark up. "Lots of kids in my life, recently. It's nice."

"You're still into peds?"

She shrugged. "I don't know… Maybe not as a specialty, but I do like kids. Do you want kids, Jackson?"

A little taken aback, he considered this for a second. "Yeah, someday."

"How many?"

He laughed, a bit nervously. "I don't know. I haven't thought about it all that much. More than one, though, I guess. I was an only child, and always wanted a sibling."

"Well, sisters can be cruel, but I still agree." April took a sip of her drink, then smirked. "You wanna know a secret? This is iced tea. I didn't feel like an actual alcohol beverage."

"Scandalous. Don't let Cristina hear you. She'd have way too fun mixing 'Virgin Mary' with you ordering virgin drinks."

April's eyes widened. "Oh, you are so right. This is why I need you in my life. I don't think about these things." She glanced at her watch. "Ugh, it's already late. How long do you think we'll stay out?"

Jackson raised one eyebrow. "You're such a grandma."

"We have work tomorrow! African kids to save."

"That's why I'm having one beer, not getting drunk. But it doesn't mean I have to be tucked into bed by 10:30. If you're that desperate, just go home." Jackson paused. "But, I promise you I'll come up with an excuse at 11:00 if you'll stay till then."

For just a moment, April rested her head on his shoulder. "Thanks."

"No problem. It's been a long day."


	21. white wedding

Chapter 21: **white wedding**

Jackson was more than happy to toast Mouse J. After the day he'd had, he had no problem toasting the mouse that had put him in the running for Chief Resident—a top contender in Webber's eyes, at least.

"To Mouse J!" Lexie agreed happily, clinking their glasses.

He and Lexie were in a relationship sweet spot: past awkwardness and formalities, but he wasn't tired of her presence at all. She was kind and smart and funny, if occasionally a bit high strung. Though April's constant warnings about her and Mark loomed over his head, he tried to ignore them.

"You're not the only contenders, you know," Owen said, motioning to Jackson, Cristina, and Alex. "My sources tell me that Kepner could be a dark horse."

This came as no surprise to Jackson, but Cristina said, "Oh, please," and walked away.

Alex took Owen's drink as he went to take a sip. "No offense, Dr. Hunt, but, uh—I have you scheduled for a Swenson procedure on a two-year-old orphan tomorrow morning." Owen eyed his stolen drink, but Alex continued. "I'm sure you understand. I'm just looking out for the kids. That I brought here. From Africa."

No one doubted Alex's dedication to those kids. That alone made him a big Chief Resident candidate.

Lexie rolled her eyes, and Owen just nodded, his face clearly communicating how he felt about Alex's controlling his alcoholic intake.

* * *

Jackson had always liked weddings. He still liked wedding dancing. The way he saw it, it was a residual effect of his social standing in high school—prom kings had excellent proms, so weddings were the closest he could come to recreating the fun he had as a teenager.

Of course, if level-of-fun-on-the-dance-floor were proportional to popularity-in-high-school, April Kepner had no right to be having the time of her life.

But there she was, twirling and dancing in a style reminiscent of an eight-year-old, in her brightly-colored floral dress. Lexie couldn't stop laughing at April, to the extent where Jackson couldn't help she was being a bit mean, but April didn't care, and neither did Callie, who was joining in.

"What are you doing with your arms?" Callie asked, a little giddy with laughter.

April continued her weird chicken-flap motion. "I don't know, I like it! Smile, Jackson!"

She'd been taking picture after picture all night, probably planning some scrapbook for Arizona, as her bridesmaid. Most of them were extreme close-ups on his face, since he was usually nearby and she had no problem making him uncomfortable.

"That's horrible!" Lexie exclaimed, bursting into laughter at the sight of his face on April's camera screen. She wasn't wrong—he looked like he was mid-sneeze or something. "Okay, I need more alcohol if _that_ is the face of my boyfriend," she said, nudging Jackson's side.

He smirked at her as she headed off.

"I think I'm a little tipsy," April said, giggling.

Callie leaned forward. "I think you are, Kepner." She headed over towards Mark, who Jackson pretended wasn't watching Lexie approach the bar.

"Guess what I heard?" Jackson said. "Hunt says he got word you'd be an excellent Chief Resident from someone."

April wrinkled her nose. "Today?"

"Yeah. Who were you working with?"

The song changed, and April jumped up and down. "Ooh! I love this one. What did you say? Oh—right. I was with Owen and Robert. Stark. But he was mad at me all day so there's no way it was him. Are you sure it wasn't just Owen?"

"He said he had a source. What'd you do to piss Stark off?"

She groaned, and he could see her good mood dissipate just a little. "Well, I didn't know it was a _crime_ to care about my patients," she said, voice over-heavy with sarcasm. She was definitely a little tipsy. "Asha, my girl from Ethiopia. I've been trying to help her out. I was speaking a little basic Swahili, and he made fun of me for it. She wasn't eating, so I tried to make nsima because I thought it might be a little more familiar than hospital crap, but he thought I was being ridiculous."

Naturally, April would've done all those things for a patient. It was so _April_ it nearly hurt.

"He's wrong. You're right. Caring for your patients is not a crime."

"Thank you."

"How did your nsima turn out?"

She held up a _so-so_ hand. "But she ate it! I brought leftovers to some of the chaperones from East Africa, though, and they said it tasted like something their five-year-old siblings would make."

Jackson laughed, and impulsively kissed the top of her head. "You're something else."

"I know. Something weird."

"A little bit."

Lexie rejoined them and slung an arm around each, nearly spilling her champagne. "I like you two," she said, then glanced at April. "I mean, mostly."

April glared, then snuck out of Lexie's arm with a grin. "Come on, more dancing."

"More dancing!" Arizona agreed, pulling herself into their circle.

* * *

It was a long night, and the cab ride home was even longer as April droned on and on about Swahili and HIV exposure and the type of music they played at weddings. Jackson's head was spinning, Lexie was drooling on his shoulder, and all he could think about was mice and portal veins.


	22. i will survive

Chapter 22: **i will survive**

 _It's not going to be you, April. I don't care how many boxes you check. You're not gonna be Chief Resident._

Cristina's words had cut deep. They were too familiar.

As a kid, April had never been popular. Her sisters had created a personality monster: picked on too often to be confident, placed in charge of her younger sisters enough to develop a controlling nature, and all too used to the feeling of being spoken over and outshone. So throughout elementary, middle, and high school, she lived in the shadows. That is, until it became necessary that she be the temporary laughing stock of the classroom, whenever she said something stupid or wore the wrong thing.

So she learned the rules. Rules helped. What was unstylish, what was too stylish for someone of her social position to wear. She learned who was allowed to speak their mind (not her) and who should always nod along and keep her mouth shut (always her). As a teenager, her life revolved around avoiding faux pas. With a lot of effort, she could stay relatively hidden.

When she was a junior, she had had the audacity to run for class secretary. She had a solid campaign, neat and eye-catching posters, and a carefully written candidacy speech she'd spent hour memorizing off her flashcards.

Just before she stepped up to the podium in the cafeteria, she heard Macey Kinnon's voice from a table at the front, a stage whisper: " _Who does she think she's kidding_?"

Her brain turned to mush, her mouth failed to produce the speech she'd known by heart for weeks, and her speech consisted of saying, "Um… I'm April Kepner. Please vote for me, please." She hadn't even remembered to announce her position.

At the end of the year, when everyone was passing yearbooks around the cafeteria, one of the only people to sign hers had written, "Um… Please have a good summer, please." (They hadn't signed their name. It didn't matter to her who it was, anyway.)

That disaster had disillusioned her to rules. She hadn't crossed any lines by stepping up to the podium. Her outfit had been unassuming, her posture average, her facial expression neutral. She wasn't running for president. The only kid running against her was just as unknown as herself. But they didn't care.

 _I'm the problem. It was never about breaking rules._

When she realized that, med school was a little easier. She cared less (though still a lot) about what people thought, and injected more and more of herself into how she presented herself to others. She made friends anyway, to her surprise.

Flash forward through years of school, through intern year, through the beginning of residency, and through the transfer to Seattle Grace.

Flash forward to when a woman died because April wasn't paying attention to the rules. Because she'd skipped steps.

 _It's a balance. There's rules, there's me, and I need both._ That had been working okay. She had some friends, she had a job again eventually, and she was managing. She _had_ thought she stood a good chance at Chief Resident until Cristina said that, and even after they'd been getting along so well.

Cristina disregarded the rules, and then she disregarded April too. _Not good enough on my own, and not good enough with the rules. That's all I've got._

So she wanted to drink. Of course, Cristina was at the bar with Alex. April ordered a scotch from Callahan, the barkeeper, and ended up telling Cristina off. It hadn't been her intent, but by the time she was done, she no longer wanted to drink. _Alex'll finish it,_ she decided, and bolted out of the bar after only being inside a minute.

* * *

April was sitting on the stairs. She wasn't exactly sure when she'd chosen to sit down there, or why, but there she was. In fact, she was a bit frozen, just staring at her knees and thinking.

The door opening startled her.

"Hi, April?" Lexie looked at her quizzically. Jackson eyed her over his girlfriend's shoulder as he hung up his jacket.

April jumped to her feet and brushed off imaginary dust. "Just, uh, slipped." After forcing a laugh, April moved past them toward the kitchen.

Jackson and Lexie's muttered conversation continued up the stairs.

 _You will be Chief Resident_. That had been April's mantra from months. She was in the habit of thinking it, mouthing along to the words, as she went through her day. It was comforting. Now, thinking the words made her grimace. _Who do I think I'm kidding?_

Ten minutes later, Jackson came thumping down the stairs.

"You walk like an elephant," April muttered. She pushed open the front door. She'd made a glass of chocolate milk and had been imagining a mindless ten minutes on the porch swing.

Jackson followed her outside. "I know I do. What's your excuse?"

"What?"

"Why are you acting like a trampled sloth?"

"Am not."

They both dropped onto the swing. It wasn't warm out, but with her sweater April felt all right. The chill night air was refreshing, at least.

"You are, and unlike me, you have no reason to be."

She glared at him. "What do you know about my reasons?"

He held up his hands. "Just trying to talk to you."

"What's your reason?" she asked, dropping her head against the scratchy wood of the swing. Absentmindedly, she wondered if her mother might have a sewing pattern that would work to make cushions for it.

Jackson got the swinging going, slowly, pushing with his toes. "I'm out of the running for Chief Resident."

"How did you manage that?" she asked, not having to feign interest.

"I dropped Webber's trial."

April could hardly believe she was hearing that right. It warranted sitting fully upright and an open-mouthed stare. "Why on Earth would you? That trial's genius!"

"Exactly. Harper Avery genius."

April softened. _He's keeping his name off it so the chief stands a chance._ "Oh. Jackson…"

"Don't 'Jackson' me."

"You're sweet, that's all."

Jackson stole her chocolate milk and took a swig, without even bothering to rotate the cup so he'd have an untouched portion of the rim. "Not sweet, just trying to stay on the chief's good side. Chief Resident is a battle, not the war."

Shaking her head, April grinned at him. "Tell yourself that if you want. I know you're just a big softie. Of course, I already knew that."

"So why exactly were you moping around?"

"Oh." She'd forgotten for a moment. "I'm not going to be Chief Resident either. Cristina let me in on that little secret."

Jackson scoffed. "What does Yang know?"

"That all I've got is rules and an annoying personality that makes people wanna clock me," April answered quickly.

"Oh, 'clock' you, huh? Well, maybe a time traveler from the 1930s, but that could just be for those far-fetched notions of female equality you hold."

"Don't make fun of how I talk," she snapped. Not high on patience.

"I'm not making fun of you, geez." Jackson stopped the swing. "April, she's wrong. You'd be a great Chief Resident—not 'cause you're annoying, but 'cause you're organized and principled and an excellent surgeon."

"Not as good as Cristina. Or Meredith. Or you. Or probably even Alex."

"Come on, you're better than Karev. He's got the edge on, like, babies, but you're a better surgeon. And definitely better than me. At least you're not dropping clinical trials left and right."

"Well, I'm not stupid."

"Now I'm gonna clock you."

April shoved him a little and started the swing again. "You know, I did pull a tree out of a person today."

It always made her happy to dumbfound him.


	23. unaccompanied minor

Chapter 23: **unaccompanied minor**

Dynamics change quickly. Roles change quickly. Relationships change quickly.

Today was one of those days where people were in a constant state of flux. It started with Meredith kicking Alex out of the house before Jackson had even finished his rounds, but even that major change was quickly interrupted by an announcement that forced everyone to shift yet again: "A 757 went down in the Sound."

Seattle Grace Mercy West was the designated crisis center, so he knew the place was about to be a madhouse. The calm before the storm was anything but as doctors, nurses, and staff rushed to prepare.

April was preparing the ER for triage. Teddy rushed off to make sure Henry, who had been in pre-op, wouldn't be completely discharged. Jackson was Sloan's assistant candy man for the day, ready to liberally dispense pain meds to all the patients coming in from the crash. Though Sloan was his mentor, he was a bit nervous to be spending the rest of the day with him; everything had become weird, thanks to his relationship with Lexie.

It didn't take long for the ER to become quiet, even as the rest of the hospital was erupting with transfers and discharges and confused patients and angry families. Jackson enjoyed the respite into the quiet when he made a trip over for more sedatives. "The people we're transferring are starting to freak out," he explained to Sloan.

As he punched in the code for the drugs, Sloan approached him and cleared his throat. "You're a good man, Avery. Lexie's yours. Take her. Take care of her."

Jackson couldn't help but stare. _What just happened?_

"I'll stay out of your way," Sloan added.

"I kind of already have her, but…" Jackson decided that wasn't necessary. He was pretty sure he knew what Mark was trying to do, even if it was awkward and weird. 'Thank you?"

Sloan patted his shoulder. "You're welcome."

 _Again, what just happened?_

* * *

The ER was still quiet. It wasn't peaceful anymore; it was unnerving. It said very clearly that things were very, very wrong, and felt completely post-apocalyptic. Of course, April was at least feigning optimistic ignorance about why the ER was still empty.

"Uh, maybe I should put some IV fluids in the heater? Warm them up?"

Jackson met her eyes, which were unreadable. Her hair was braided tightly out of her face, her yellow isolation gown was situated perfectly, her hands were fidgeting.

"No," Owen said, and she flipped to face him.

Crossing the room, April said, "But if people have been in the water for that long, then—"

"April," Arizona interrupted.

She persisted. "But if we just—"

"No one's coming," Mark said. "If it's taken this long, nobody survived."

Callie sighed, head sinking into her hands. Jackson trained his eyes on April as the carefully-constructed hope faded off her face, and fear and sorrow took over. _Nobody survived_ were not words that anybody liked to hear, but for April I-can-bring-you-back-from-the-brink-of-death Kepner, a plane full of casualties was enough to send her crashing into a brick wall, and Jackson could see if coming a mile away.

Before he could go and talk to her, April dashed off down the hallway, staring at her shoes.

* * *

Chief Webber gathered them all up to explain what was happening next. Emergency services had begun identifying the bodies, and had a list going. All the staff was now dedicated to delivering news, which was the worst part of any normal day as a surgical resident, and was now going to fill the next five hours, at least.

Before Jackson left with Lexie to head to the cafeteria and find the first names on his list, he noticed Owen approaching the board—the Chief Resident decision.

When Owen pinned up "April Kepner, M.D." as Chief Resident, Jackson felt a grin tugging at his mouth. She'd stopped believing she stood a chance, and she'd won it. _Now maybe her she can steer herself away from the no-one-survived cliff,_ he hoped.

He caught Alex's slight sneer, Meredith's eye-roll, and then April behind them, a look of pure wonder come onto her face. He was grateful she hadn't seen her friends' reactions. _You deserve it!_ he wanted to call out, but it didn't match the somber mood that had been set for the day.

April's smile faded quickly, and he saw her get a bit embarrassed. It was a bad day for good news. She glanced at Alex and Meredith's quickly retreating forms, and he saw that familiar doubt and guilt and hurt.

"Come on," Lexie murmured, tugging on his wrist.

These people, waiting for news about their loved ones, needed him more than April. It was a really good day for bad news.

* * *

Heading into that cafeteria felt like volunteering for torture, all those families turning with rapt attention and hopeful eyes.

As Teddy took back the first family, who were excitedly following her, April whispered to Lexie, "They think it's good news…" Lexie nodded imperceptibly.

"This is a nightmare," Lexie added, and she wasn't wrong. For everyone involved, thought certainly it was worse for the families, which Jackson kept reminding himself. It can be hard to put thing into perspective when your whole body is begging to run miles away from the families on his list and their rushing pulses and half-hearted nods—at least, the ones he was imagining them having while they walked to a room.

* * *

Jackson walked out of the room, after spending twenty minutes trying to console the Lang family. The daughter was sobbing, the mom was practically catatonic, and the dad kept asking all these low questions but not hearing Jackson's answers and just asking again. When the girl cried, "Where's Davey? I want my brother!" for the umpteenth time, Jackson decided to go find one of those grief counselors; he couldn't handle this.

In the hallway, April brushed his shoulder as she raced by.

"There's a survivor!" she turned around to say quietly, so the families wouldn't hear. But Jackson could hear it in her voice nonetheless, how much she'd needed this.

* * *

A little girl. Sarah Gordon. An unaccompanied minor. No family was there yet for the one survivor.

"Except," Lexie said, leaning close to him, "these families? They've started staying. They're here for the girl, until her family gets here. Every time I walk in with an update I almost start crying."

Jackson nodded. "I can't imagine," he mumbled.

* * *

Sarah was out of surgery, and every family had been told. Lexie was sitting with the families that had stayed. Jackson had peeked into the cafeteria, trying to decide if she was stuck or just wanting to be comforting, and as far as he could tell it was the latter.

Now it was time to celebrate the good news, just a little bit.

"Chief friggin' Resident," Jackson said, tucking his pen into his pocket as he walked into the office where he'd found April. "Unbelievable."

She looked up at him, nose all scrunched up. "I'm sorry."

"What? Don't be." _I didn't stand a chance, and there's nothing for you to apologize for._ "You deserve it. I'm happy." He turned away, and glimpsed Lexie through the window. "I have what I want," he added, but the words felt funny in his mouth.

April sighed, and decided to say something very true: "It's been such a crappy year. I can't believe we're both happy," she snorted.

 _Is she really happy?_ he wondered, but thought there was a chance. There had been a survivor.

"I can't believe they liked me enough to make me Chief Resident!" April exclaimed, making Jackson laugh just a little. "They hated me for so long. I can't believe I actually have friends here."

He should've considered his next words carefully. Little things make or break April, he'd figured that much out since the shooting.

"Well, they're gonna hate you again." It was true, if not pleasant, so at least he was preparing her for what was to come. "It's now your job to boss them around. You know how much they love that," he said with a smirk.

"Oh gosh, is that true?" she asked.

Her expression of pure shock and dread cracked him up. Lexie was smiling too, through the window.

"That's true!" April answered herself.

"Well, I won't hate you," Jackson said. "Unless you mess up my surgical schedule for some unnecessary crap. Or probably even for necessary crap."

April groaned.

* * *

Dynamics change, people change, and housing arrangements change.

When he, April, and Lexie got home, Alex had moved out, Derek was nowhere to be found, Cristina was lying on the couch, and Meredith was holding a little baby.

"We've got temporary custody of Zola," Meredith explained.

While April rushed to coo over the baby, Lexie tilted her head. "Who, you and Cristina?"

Meredith glared at her sister. "Derek's busy."

"Whatever," Lexie said, and joined April on the rug with Zola. Jackson dropped onto the couch by Cristina's feet, and he decided to mess with her a little.

"You know, April's Chief Resident."

Cristina groaned. "Virgin Mary's in charge? I mean, I know why Meredith and I were out of the running, but what happened to Devil's Spawn."

April looked up guiltily, and Jackson regretted bringing it up. "Why exactly did you kick Alex out anyway?" he asked Meredith.

She stared at him. "Not interested in talking about him, or Derek, or April Kepner in charge. Just happy baby times, Jackson. Happy baby times." Zola furrowed her eyebrows, and April and Lexie laughed like she'd performed a perfect stand-up routine.

One day can change a lot.

 **A/N: Season 7 done! I'm going to take about a month hiatus from this story until the quarter is finished, because I am just too busy! I do plan to continue in June with season 8 :)**


	24. free falling

Chapter 24: **free falling**

 **A/N: I'm back! The quarter's all finished and I'll be continuing this story now, starting with Season 8 episode 1. Hopefully I'll be able to update around twice a week. Reviews and feedback are always appreciated :)**

 _If a day has ever been a metaphor for my entire life, it's today. First day of Chief Residency, and a sinkhole opens up in Downtown Seattle._

"I need Trauma 3 cleared out!" April ordered for the fourth time, but none of the nurses or interns were paying her any attention. _What's wrong with me_? she wondered, frustrated. First she couldn't stop Cristina from attacking Alex, and now she can't even prepare an ER for incoming traumas. Owen should be able to rely on her to do that much.

"Logan!" she shouted, grabbing for the sleeve of the closest intern. He turned to her with wide eyes.

"What is it, Dr. Kepner?"

"Trauma 3! Empty! Now!"

He nodded and turned on his heels. April took a deep breath.

 _That was not effective leadership._ She'd thought she'd prosper at a job like this; with her mother being an elementary school teacher, April had grown up with a perfect example of calm and revered authority, keeping control in chaotic situations. After a slow, deep breath, she reminded herself that she'd been chosen as Chief Resident because she was the best candidate for the job.

 _But really, everyone but me and Alex was eliminated by default._ Meredith was currently fired for having tampered with Derek's trial, Jackson dropped Webber's project, and Owen had already told Cristina she wouldn't be a good fit. _And being a better choice than Alex isn't much of an accomplishment. He nearly committed fraud like a month ago._

Another deep breath, then she started another loop around the ER with her checklist.

* * *

"Update the freaking board!" April reminded Jackson as he moved past her in the direction of the ambulance bay.

He waved her off and she groaned. None of her fellow residents were even trying to keep the systems up to the date, and April ran off systems. There was too much important information to keep running around on the fly.

She darted over to the board and updated it for him after a glance at the chart he'd passed to her.

* * *

 _Do I look like I'm losing my mind?_ April wondered, a fleeting thought in the midst of frantic patient checking, OR scheduling, and occasional medical diagnosing. The towering pile of cases on the desk in front of her were thanks to Meredith— _that's not fair. It's not like she wanted to be fired. Of course, she didn't have to mess up the trial. Then again, she does give me a place to live for very reasonable rent. And Zola's cute as a button. Wait, did Mr. Ragginson have family we needed to call?_

She heard the blessed sounds of Jackson and Lexie approaching, his arm slung over her shoulder.

"Oh, uh, Jackson!" He was ignoring her. "Jackson!" She saw his pace slow. "I need you to take over some of these."

He didn't even glance at Meredith's cases. "I can't," he said, earnestly. "I have to see a man about redoing some sutures."

On one hand, April understood. He was working to win his mentor's approval and solidify a place in his specialty of choice, which seemed a lot more important in the long run than helping her with a giant pile of clipboards. But, she had too many problems to care about his.

"Please." She knew she could get him if she looked sad enough.

Jackson held his resolve a little longer, until April added a little desperation in her eyes, and Lexie looked at him over her shoulder.

"I'll take one," he said, reaching out.

"Thank you! Bed 4." She passed him a case with a smile, and he headed off.

Lexie said, "Bailey needs her spleen patient taken to the OR."

April glanced up at the board. "Uh… he's in Bed 3. So…" She scanned the patient's file. "He just, um… He needs a consent form."

"Make sure the consent form gets put on his chart," Lexie instructed the nurse, and she was off too before April could try and push any more of Meredith's cases off.

* * *

Hours of ER chaos later, and April was starting to finally feel like things were running a bit smoothly. A few nurses were on board with the systems, which was making everything better.

The big problem was still Meredith's caseload, still overflowing with work April was stuck with, in addition to all her own patients and responsibilities. She'd just sent Mrs. Daniels off to her CT scan, and now the room she'd been occupying could be set up for incoming.

Luckily, she spotted Jackson at the other end of the ER, so she rushed over.

"Hey, uh, I need you to prep Trauma 1." Her checklist didn't leave her any space to do it herself, he was standing there, relatively idle. "We got another sinkhole victim on the way." Before she'd finished the sentence, April was already turning her attention to the homeless man who'd been trying to get a bed for half an hour because of a headache. On a less busy day, she might've agreed to give him an exam, but today they didn't have the space or time, so she was trying to remember where Owen kept the shelter information.

"Stop asking me to do your work!" Jackson exclaimed, turning on her. "Do it yourself."

April frowned and kept walking. She tried to hide how swiftly his words had injured her.

"And how about you tell me where Jerry Hoffman is?" he continued.

"What?"

"Jerry Hoffman?"

 _Well, you could know for yourself if you looked up at this handy dandy board. Do it yourself._ "Um, well, he's supposed to be in Bed 1. That's what the board says." _Okay, Jackson would've looked at the board_. "He's not there?"

Jackson was simultaneously smug and frustrated. "Does it look like he's there?"

Bed 1: a woman. Not Jerry Hoffman.

"Oh, wait. Wait. That can't be right."

The system was failing. _Not good enough on my own, and not good enough with the rules. That's all I've got._

Her heart sunk. "'Cause if the patient from Bed 2 is in Bed 1, then that means the patient from Bed 3 must be…"

 _CRAP._

"Oh no!" She could barely move, for just a second, then took off towards the OR. "Oh no, no, no, no, no!"

* * *

 _First day of Chief Residency, and a sinkhole opens up in Downtown Seattle. And then I barely get to the OR in time to let them know they're about to cut into the wrong patient. Whatever this "Gunther" is, it'll be replacing me as Chief Resident by the end of the week._


	25. she's gone

Chapter 25: **she's gone**

Standing at the sinks outside of the OR, Jackson felt like he was glowing.

Meredith was AWOL, Cristina had injected Alex with heart-stopping epinephrine, Alex had passed out in the middle of surgery, he and April had just _killed_ a massive trauma surgery, Susannah was stable, and he was the Gunther.

"You must be feeling good," April muttered, scrubbing at her fingernails with that familiar yellow iodine soap.

"I am." He beamed at her, and she gave him a half-grin back. "You should be happy too. We were operating like one person with four hands in there."

She scoffed. "We were pretty good."

"We were frikkin' amazing, April. Today is frikkin' amazing."

"Well, not if you're Meredith, Cristina, Alex, Derek, or most the people in this hospital."

"But you and me. We can be winners today."

April glanced at him, eyebrows a little furrowed.

"What?"

It took her a minute to answer. Jackson shook the excess water off his hands.

She finally said, "You've yelled at me like five times today."

"No, I haven't."

Immediately, April was shaking her head. "Yes you have. First you chastised me for daring to use the last of the milk, even though I'm the one who bought it. The second one wasn't so much yelling as it was, 'I don't care about your system or the fact that it's your first day as Chief Resident, and you're trying to succeed, I'm not putting any of my patients up on that useless board that totally could've prevented the whole wrong-guy-in-the-OR problem, that would be dumb.' And then, you snap at me about 'go do your own work,' even though it is my job to organize the residents around tasks that need to be done, and I do not _actually_ have four arms to get it all finished. And then, it was, 'you're Chief Resident, not Chief of Surgery,' because we all know that I have no worth as an actual doctor, just as a organizer and surgical assistant."

He balked. "Well, that's only four," he said, with a little nervous laugh in his voice.

She moved past him, elbowing the door open.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Sincerely, I am."

With a curt nod, April said, "It's okay."

He knew it wasn't, not with her, but it was enough to get them through this case and the rest of the day.

"Wait up!" he called. "I was going to put you on post-op. Bailey wants me to give her the low-down on the mice for Webber's trial."

"Okay. What do I need to know?"

Jackson's mind was whirling, instantly back to the intense clarity that had come over him during surgery, the minute Cristina and Alex were out of the picture. This was not a case he was going to forget anytime soon.

He went over all the instructions he had as they made their way out to the recovery wing. "Does that cover everything."

"I think so."

"All right, then get back to me with her post-op crit." Something else occurred to him. "And make sure you're aggressive with the dressings on her leg. I'm still worried about an infection."

"Okay," April agreed, splitting off in the direction of Susannah's room. She had had that look on her face of paying complete attention, focusing on every detail.

Jackson headed to the desk, to see when Bailey would be out of surgery, and was met with Mark and Cristina.

 _Oh great, Mark._ After trying all day to get Mark to believe he was worth anything as a surgeon, Jackson had stumbled backwards into being the Gunther. Mark had acted all proud and confident, but Jackson knew he knew it was a coincidence. It had been easy to be proud of himself until Mark got all cocky—that made reality a little starker, and Jackson would like to stay in post-surgery bliss as much as possible.

"You know why she just did what he said, right?" Mark asked Cristina. "Because he's the Gunther."

Jackson knew that, Gunther or not, April wouldn't have done what he said unless she agreed with it. _At least, I don't think she would…_ Sometimes, he underestimated April's need to be liked, her comfort in conformity. But then again, she was the Chief Resident. If anything was going to boost her assertiveness, it should be that.

"How did it go?" Cristina asked, ignoring Mark.

"We'll have to go back for definitive repairs," Jackson told her, "but we stopped the major hemorrhaging. Got the leg all cleaned out."

"Good."

"Nice work today, Avery," Dr. Altman said, and Jackson couldn't help but notice that the simple appraisal from his former mentor was a lot easier to process than Mark's coded crap, his opinions that flipped on a dime.

"Thank you. I just hope she, uh, pulls through."

Eager to escape the awkward conversation and the look on Cristina's face, Jackson decided he could get info on Bailey elsewhere.

* * *

An hour later, Bailey was still in surgery, Meredith and the baby she'd apparently kidnapped were still missing, and Jackson thought he'd check on Susannah.

To his surprise, April was already sitting at her bedside, eyes flitting between her chart, her monitor, and her face. April's expression was deeply tense. That could've come from anywhere: Susannah, their not-so-peaceful conversation after surgery, the stressful day in general.

"She okay?" Jackson asked, a little uneasy.

April sighed. "Uh, no change. I just… I don't want to mess this up like I messed up everything else up."

That was a tone he was familiar with, when it came to April. Self-degradation, disappointed in herself, doubting herself. It was, unfortunately, a recurring problem.

He went for simple and honest encouragement, giving her a look that clearly showed he thought that was ridiculous. "What? You were great in the OR."

"I wasn't the Gunther," she said, and it wasn't hard to tell she was cutting straight to the root of the problem. April was never one to miss a chance to set high standards for herself and get upset when she fell just a little short. "I was a super-duper assistant."

Jackson considered how to respond to that. When April was in a mood like this, he tried to choose his words carefully—she held onto what he said, he'd learned in various arguments months after the fact.

He tucked his pen into his pocket. _Do I hug her? Promise her my next surgery? Tell her she was better than me. Well, she wasn't. She'd know I was lying. Tell her on a different day, she would've taken charge and I would've followed her surgical orders for hours. I mean, that's true._

Apparently, he waited to long, because she jumped in again. April didn't meet his eyes, and said quietly, "Are they gonna fire me as Chief Resident?"

The heart of the issue had an even deeper heart, apparently.

"No," he told her confidently. April looked up at him, half-hope and half-surprise. "It was your first day." _And not an easy one. Actually, a pretty crappy one._ "They'll just… Make you do it again."

From the look on her face, that was even worse. He put his hand on her shoulder for just a second. He hoped his touch had a way of calming her fears, like hers had for him.

April turned back to Susannah.

* * *

"Ma-maybe we should leave, too," April suggested.

She was fidgeting with nervous energy. Meredith and Derek were in the room across the hall from the desk where Jackson and April were waiting, talking to Zola's adoption counselor, trying to convince her they would be great parents, that their relationship was good and ready for parenthood. The weight riding on the conversation was enough to make even peripheral Aprils fidget.

Everyone else had left, but Jackson felt pulled to stay.

"I mean, I'm sure they don't want us, just sitting here, staring at them," April pointed out.

 _She might be right,_ Jackson knew, but it felt wrong to leave. "I don't know… They're trying to keep their family together. That's… not easy." He felt April's eyes on him. "You know, it can't hurt to stick around, make sure they're okay."

" _If it doesn't go well"_ he left unsaid.

April looked a bit annoyed. "You see, this—this is why you're the Gunther. I have terrible leadership instincts."

He chuckled. "That doesn't make me a better leader," he said, keeping the smile off his lips best he could, knowing exactly what he'd say next, and knowing April would not expect it in the slightest. She was too sweet for that. "A better person, maybe," he finished, standing up.

Slapping him in the chest, April pretended to be angry, but couldn't suppress her smile.

And then they both simultaneously remembered what was happening in the room across the hall, and it wasn't funny anymore.

"I am sorry," Jackson mumbled. "It was your first day as Chief Resident, and none of us gave a crap about helping you out."

"You were helpful," April admitted, grumbling. "At least at first." She motioned for him to sit down again, just so she could kick up her legs on the desk and lean back against him. "Anyway, it's not you guys' job to make me good at mine."

Jackson took a moment to pick from a plethora of possible responses, unsure exactly what she needed to hear. "You know you're a _really_ good surgeon, right? I know people don't always notice, but there's a reason for that."

"Cause I'm nothing special. I'm average."

Jackson shook his head. "No. Everyone's watching Meredith carefully, thanks to her mom, and she's the Chief's favorite. Karev messes up all the time, so when he does well he gets three times the praise. Cristina's some kind of cardio goddess and she knows it. I've got the Harper Avery legacy."

"And then there's me," April agreed. "Pride of Moline."

"First in your class at med school," he countered.

She raised one eyebrow. "From my tiny little Ohio med school."

"Just shut up," Jackson groaned. "I'm trying to tell you that you're a good surgeon, so just listen. You're not flashy and attention-grabbing, because you're not an annoying jerk like most of us surgeons, but you have the lowest mortality rate of any of us residents. I checked half an hour ago. You care about your patients. You're going to be a _great_ Chief Resident. But even if you weren't, who cares, because you're gonna be a world-class trauma surgeon. And anyway, even if you drop out of the program and choose to pursue a career in nose-flute performance, I promise I won't let Meredith kick you out."

That at least made her laugh, and she turned and smiled at him. "Okay, Jackson. You're good at pep talks." Her eyes lit up, accompanied with the smirk that told him she'd thought of something funny. "Maybe we can be a two-man act: you give motivational speeches, and I do intro- and outro-songs on my nose flute."

He shook her on it.

Something tipped over in the other room, and their faces fell.

"If they lose Zola…" April murmured, and Jackson didn't know how to finish that sentence either.


	26. take the lead

**A/N: Sorry it's been so long without an update. I should be pretty consistent for a while now, unless something unexpected comes up.**

Chapter 26: **take the lead**

"Are you actually mad at me?" April asked. It had been on her mind since they left work, and she hadn't been able to decide whether it was worth bring up, since everything had been running smoothly.

Jackson glanced at her, surprised, and leaned back further onto his elbows. "No, I'm not mad. About what?"

After work, she and Jackson had decided to spend some time outside—late September is a beautiful time in the Pacific Northwest, April had learned since relocating for her residency. Her secret plan had been to turn the outing into a chance to study for the oral boards, but Jackson didn't buy her _it's never too early to start_ mentality when it came to test preparation. ("We got out of the hospital by dinner time for once, and I'm enjoying the freaking nice weather with no flashcards.") So now they were sitting in Volunteer Park on the grassy hillside, soaking up evening sun.

"I told Mere, Cristina, and Alex that you didn't touch your patient. Which you told me in confidence."

"It really doesn't matter. Don't worry about it."

"I shouldn't have."

"It doesn't matter."

April nodded, accepting this. "Fine. I am sorry though. You know you can trust me, normally, right? I just had a really dumb day, with Alex and not getting to actually be a surgeon because instead I was filling in as an assist."

Lying back flat on the grass, eyes closed, Jackson blindly tried to pat her shoulder but ended up half-hitting her face instead. "Oh, sorry. You don't have to be sorry, April. I know I can trust you." He chuckled. "Yeah, I heard you assisted Karev today. _That_ must have been demoralizing."

"He needed my help, trust me." April sighed and lied down too. "Did you know Callie was Chief Resident? Apparently she didn't last long. I'll probably follow in her footsteps."

"No, you've got this," Jackson said, with his usual confidence.

It was beyond April how much faith he had in her, compared to her own insecurities. Maybe she was better at hiding all her fears and faults and neuroses than she thought. After giving that a second thought, she realized it was definitely not true. _My mess is usually on full display._ "How can you think that?"

"Because I know you."

April scooted a little closer, tilted her head so it just barely rested against his arm. "That's why you're my person."

He groaned, but she could see him smiling out of the corner of her eyes. "I'd better throw this out before the wind gets it," Jackson said, sitting up. He snatched their bag of garbage from their very healthy Dick's burgers and fries.

"I'll come with. We should move and go sit where there's a view, anyway," April decided.

They found a trash can up by the Asian art museum, then meandered down to the donut-shaped statue through which they could see the Seattle skyline.

"It's still crazy to me that I live here." April stood on her tiptoes, squinting towards the Space Needle. "I mean, we work right there, Seattle Center. In the middle of this gigantic city!"

Jackson laughed, just a little. "Come on, April. Seattle isn't really a gigantic city."

"Just because you went to med school at Columbia—thank you, super rich family—doesn't mean you can pull the _nothing compares to the Big Apple_ card. That's the worst card."

Taking a seat on a step, Jackson nodded. "Fine. But Seattle's only barely bigger than Boston, and I grew up there, and trust me, it doesn't take long for a city that size to start feeling small. You'll be there in about two years."

She sat beside him. "Moline doesn't even have a post office, Jackson. We were essentially reliant on neighboring Walbridge, with a booming population of 3000, for anything beyond sitting at the farm. So _I_ know small towns, and that is a big city."

"If you say so, pig farmer."

"That's right."

With the view in front of her altogether blue and green, and with perfect sunlight warming her shoulders, April was feeling nostalgic. "Remember the first day at Mercy West?"

He smirked at her. "I remember how annoying you were."

"I was nervous!" she protested. "My flight came into Sea-Tac on Sunday, then on Monday morning I woke up at 2 AM thanks to jetlag and growing up on a farm, and then had my first day of surgical residency."

"I get it, I get it. But you did go on an on about your future family plans."

April dropped her head to her hands, laughing. "I didn't have any friends, and had hardly ever _had_ any friends. I didn't know how to talk to actual humans that weren't my family, or you know, pigs."

"Pigs are not humans."

"And pigs don't have appendixes. I looked it up after that ridiculous conversation earlier."

"How could you not have known, pig farmer?"

"Not my favorite nickname. And I took care of them, I didn't dissect them."

"And none of them ended up on the family dinner table?"

She hesitated. "Well, yes. But not the ones I named. Dad let me grant a few of the sows immunity, and we used them for breeding. And my favorite boar. But he died a few months ago, actually."

A short pause: Jackson considered whether or not he should summon sympathy, and settled with, "That's too bad."

"He was old. He was named Lupin."

"Harry Potter?"

"Naturally." April took a deep breath. "You know, this was exactly what I needed."

He gestured toward the trash can. "The burger? You didn't even finish it."

"I gave that to you because you're always hungry, and I filled up on fries, anyway. And no, just hanging out and talking and being outside," she said, and took a deep breath. "I get a little claustrophobic sometimes, in little rooms, in a hospital, in a city surrounded by mountains, or the ocean."

Jackson pointed at the water. "You mean the Sound."

"It's part of the ocean; don't be pedantic. But up here, there's a lot more sky. I like sky."

"I like the mountains—not that I've ever lived anywhere near them before Seattle, but I like them."

April scanned the horizon. "Can you see Mt. Rainier?"

A leaf fell on her lap and she brushed it off. Most of the trees around were evergreens, but there were enough maples to make it feel a bit like the beginning of autumn. Jackson finally answered, "No, I don't think so. Don't know if it would be visible from here, if it were clearer. You can see it from U-Dub, but only when the weather is just right."

"In Seattle?"

"It's not often." Jackson smiled at her. "I really do think you're a good Chief Resident. We're just brats that don't like being told what to do. I'll try to avoid knocking over that plant in your office for the third time, I promise."

She snorted. "It's okay. I should've known that room would never be my sanctuary. Everyone was bound to make it their hangout spot." She turned to him. "Did you know that a few years ago, Meredith, Alex, Cristina, Izzie and George—that guy who got hit by a bus—would have lunch in an old coma patient's room?"


	27. what is it about men

Chapter 27: **what is it about men**

Jackson tried to hide his relief that Mark hadn't shot down his idea about attaching the ear in the abdomen for safekeeping. Though it may have sounded ridiculous, he knew it would work, and he was sick of Mark double-guessing everything Jackson suggested. This time, he just told him it was a good idea, and now they were looking over the scan, establishing the specifics.

"Hey, Avery, you won't believe this!"

Karev's voice from the doorway forced Jackson to spin around in his chair. "What? We're in the middle of something."

Mark was, of course, unbothered, just grinning at Alex. "What is it? I haven't heard you that amused in a long time."

"It's this guy we've got in the ER. He's totally got the hots for Kepner, and it's hilarious!"

Though Mark started laughing, Jackson said, automatically, "That's not hilarious."

"It really is," Alex said, smirking. "He came in with broken toes, I fixed him up, but he's _obsessed_ with April. He came back in claiming chest pains just to see her again."

Jackson raised his eyebrows. "Okay, now he just sounds like a stalker."

"Relax, Avery," Mark said. "This guy came in this morning? From Comic Con?" Alex nodded. "So he's just a geek. It's okay."

Alex snorted. "Yeah, the guy's harmless, Jackson. He thinks she's some Doth-something princess. And he's dressed like a Hobbit. And he's in a hospital bed with broken toes and fake chest pains. And he has the bravery of… well, even less than a Hobbit. So relax."

Nodding, Jackson just asked, "Does April know?"

"She's busy—the ER's swamped with nerds. If you'd like to check out the lovesick creature, he's in Bed 3."

Alex ducked away again, and Mark was still smiling. "That kind of news, Jackson? Weird little hospital stories? That's what will make this job fun for you in ten years."

Jackson sincerely hoped he'd find his own surgical profession fulfilling enough to not rely on minuscule gossip and making fun of patients to get him through the day, but there's was no way he was contradicting Mark on the issue.

* * *

"Jackson?"

That was not Lexie, who said as soon as she got home she'd let him know. No, that was April—it was easy to distinguish because his name was very clearly a question, as opposed to Lexie, who was always confident he'd want to spend time with her.

He headed to her room and opened the door. "What's up?"

April smiled up at him. For some reason, she was sitting on the floor instead of on her bed, with her laptop settled in her lap. "I just thought maybe we could talk for a bit. I was a bit bored."

Even if that wasn't the most flattering reason someone might want to hang out with him, Jackson was happy to settle in beside her and squint at her screen. "What are you looking at?" he asked, studying the site. "Is that the library?"

"That guy, in the ER—Alex told me he told you about him—he…" She trailed off at the look on his face. "What?"

"Did he do something?"

She nodded. "Oh, yeah, he did. Calm down, nothing bad. Didn't you hear about what happened?"

Jackson shook his head, trying to suppress his nerves. _She's right here, so obviously everything's fine._

"There was this other, really aggressive guy the other day. Some of the kids from Emerald City Comic Con lined up on his lawn, and he got mad and started a fight. And later on, he decided to try and start a fight with me, and everyone else in the ER."

Eyes wide, Jackson asked, "How did I not hear about this?"

"I'm surprised you didn't hear about it when you were off deck-building with the boys."

"I was a little busy with the power saw," Jackson admitted.

April raised one eyebrow. "Boys are weird. Do you work through your emotions by hammering and nailing and sawing?"

He couldn't help but ask, "What exactly is the difference between hammering and nailing?"

"Whatever." She ignored him. "So this big, angry guy—I was just checking his blood pressure, mind you—starts yelling. He shoves Alyssa—you know that nurse whose kids play tag in the cafeteria?—to the ground, poor thing, and then he's practically on a rampage, and I'm yelling for security, and that's when Karev finally gets his butt over there. He calls for haloperidol, and we're trying to restrain the guy, who's all 'I HAVE TO PROTECT MY HOUSE'—it's ridiculous."

Jackson sunk against April's dresser, grinning as she continued. When April thought she had an interesting story and a captivated audience, she had a very roundabout way of getting to the point, and it always amused him.

"Meanwhile," she continued, "half of my brain is not _quite_ taking this seriously, and I was still thinking about what drink I was gonna get from the coffee cart later, which is a dumb use of time, because I always chicken out and get a vanilla latte, so what's the point? And then— _bam_!"

She laughed as he exaggerated a jump of surprise, clutching his chest.

"I'm on the ground! He shoved me down just like Alyssa, and knocked Alex into a tray!"

" _That_ would be why I didn't hear about it at Derek's."

April nodded, smiling. "Probably. But then—our hero emerges! Well, not really, because the little convention nerd who had a crush on me stood up to the villain, tried to save the day, but he got knocked down too. Still, it was very brave: this big guy was three times his size, and much scarier."

"So if the nerd didn't stop him, who did?"

"Owen, naturally." April beamed. _At least someone has a mentor to take pride in_ , Jackson thought. "One solid punch and the jerk was out. But I guess he's not a boaster, or the story would already be circulating the hospital. It should be. It was epic. He even booked the OR for a broken jaw as he approached the guy."

Jackson _ooh_ -ed, laughing. "Wow, that is pretty epic. I'll get it circulating—at least the Alex-crashing-into-a-tray part."

"You don't have to be mean to him," April said.

Without responding, Jackson glanced back at her screen. "So, the library?"

"Oh, my nerd guy!"

"Yeah?"

"He says I look like the princess from this book. So I was looking it up. Maybe I'll read it." April turned to look at him. "So, what emotions were you sawing through?"

He snorted. "What do you think? Mark. I'm sick of having a mentor that won't let me do anything—I do way less than Lexie, and she's a fourth-year. And also, if you're not remembering, my girlfriend and my mentor are exes. So it all sucks."

For a moment, she just considered this. "Well, you might have to change something."

"Change what?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. But it doesn't do any good complaining about it. Take inspiration from Carter the nerd and be a Hobbit."

"'Be a Hobbit'?"

"Yeah, I didn't get it either."


	28. (temporarily on hold)

**A/N: just letting you know that I'm putting this story on hold for a bit. I'm currently not motivated to write it, though I've been trying, and I don't want to just write chapters I'm not happy with. I promised I'd let you know if I wasn't going to be updating regularly, so here I am :) I do hope to finish it in a little while.**

 **Thank you so much for everyone who's read/reviewed! It means a lot.**


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